CAL DOGE — launched by gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton — has filed a formal complaint calling for a federal investigation into a California program that allegedly misspent $370 million to help woke activism.
The move comes a day after the Republican’s waste and fraud watchdog accused Elevate Youth California of misusing tax revenue raised from cannabis sales by plundering the millions into over 500 grants to fund lefty politics.
CAL DOGE Director Jenny Rae Le Roux confirmed Friday the complaint was lodged with US Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli’s office and the Department of Justice.
Gov. Gavin Newsom — and Hilton’s political rival — denied the claims on X, accusing Hilton of “misleading people.”
“FACT: The requirements for receiving funds explicitly lists ‘Partisan activities’ as PROHIBITED use of funds,” Newsom’s office said.
Le Roux called the post “self-incriminating.”
The allegedly squandered funds were meant to go toward youth substance abuse prevention as part of Prop 64, which was passed in 2016.
Instead, the cash went to a “sprawling network of 517 grants funding political organizing, voter registration drives and ‘social justice youth development,’ all administered by a single nonprofit intermediary most Californians have never heard of,” CAL DOGE claimed.
Each grant was divided up in small chunks, averaging $716,150 each, to obscure the alleged fraud, Hilton’s group said.
“This fragmentation makes traditional auditing nearly impossible. No single grant is large enough to trigger intensive audit scrutiny,” CAL DOGE said on its website.
The group accused the California Department of Health Care Services, which oversees Elevate Youth California, of issuing a contract to The Center at Sierra Health Foundation — a nonprofit it claims has strong ties to Newsom. The Center, it claimed, then decides who gets grant money, effectively dodging any real oversight.
CAL DOGE used Rhetor AI to conduct its audit.
Hilton, a former Fox News contributor, has been hellbent on exposing government fraud since announcing his run for governor in April.
