The Existentialist Republic

The Existentialist Republic

April 28 · DOGE

California AG Bonta Has Everything He Needs to Open a Criminal Investigation into Musk and DOGE. Today I’m Submitting a Prosecution Investigation Referral Memorandum to His Office.

Here's what you can do.

Images: CA AG Rob Bonta(Paul Kuroda / For The Times),Trump (Musk Suzy Khimm/ABC News)

Table of Contents

Imagine a federal employee drove drunk through a California neighborhood, hit three cars, and admitted on the record that he did it. Now imagine that rather than charging them with a DUI, the District Attorney filed a civil suit instead of pressing criminal charges, asked a judge to order the employee to stop driving drunk in the future, and called a press conference to announce the lawsuit as a major accountability win. Then imagine waiting six to twelve months for the federal government, not the employee, to cut a settlement check covering the damage to the cars while the employee himself faces no personal consequence and goes back to work the next morning. No one would call that justice. No one would call that the rule of law. That is what civil-only accountability for DOGE’s conduct looks like, and that highly celebrated shortfall is what every level of state government has offered so far.

In February, this publication walked through the laws that let every state in the country criminally investigate DOGE personnel for what they did at the Social Security Administration. Identity theft and cybercrime statutes let prosecutors charge crimes where the victim lives rather than where the defendant sat, a state conviction cannot be erased by a presidential pardon, and the federal Department of Justice has now admitted the underlying conduct in a federal court filing.

Over the last two months, thousands of Existentialist Republic readers got after it. They filed police reports with their local departments, sent referrals to county prosecutors and governors asking for criminal investigation under their state’s identity theft and computer fraud laws, and wrote to their state attorneys general directly with the conduct, the defendants, and the statutes named.

The responses varied by level and office, with police mostly filing reports, county prosecutors mostly claiming the matter was outside their jurisdiction (it’s not), governors directing us elsewhere, and attorneys general defaulting to some masterful deflections that did double service of not answering the criminal conduct question while humble-bragging about their civil suit track record; they were also kind enough to copy-paste descriptions of their formal duties in the hopes of boring people into forgetting what their original question was. None of it answered the actual question: whether the office would enforce state criminal law against powerful federal officials whose conduct made our residents victims, the same way the office enforces with anyone else.

This article is the escalation. The lower levels of the system have been given a chance to act and have decline and deferred, while none of the underlying facts have shifted. The conduct still happened, the federal admissions still stand, and the statutes are still on the books. What has to change is the level of pressure. We are naming AG Bonta directly, asking him publicly, and communicating through the coalition of organizations whose support his office cannot afford to lose.

Some of you may recognize the strategy as outlined here as being inspired by Mesquita and Smith’s “Selectorate Theory” from their book “The Dictator’s Handbook.” The idea is that whether you’re trying to influence a Home Owners Association Director or a State Attorney General, the principles of effective pressure are the same. You identify their key supporters, the pillars that retain the power they value, then you bring information and resources to those key supporters that will make them reconsider their loyalty.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed fifty-four civil suits against the Trump administration in the past fifteen months, joining the multistate suits challenging DOGE’s Treasury access, the Musk Appointments Clause case, the National Guard federalization, and the Birthright Citizenship Executive Order. His public posture sits among the most aggressive of any state attorney general in the country.

But there is an important distinction here that must be outlined. Civil suits and criminal investigations are different tools. The defendants in DOGE’s data conduct are not afraid of injunctions; they are afraid of going to jail. And no one has put them in handcuffs. The Social Security Administration’s own Inspector General is reviewing the conduct, civil suits are running in courts across the country, and members of Congress have written letters, but not one state attorney general or county district attorney anywhere in the country has filed criminal charges, and the federal Department of Justice that conceded the conduct was unlawful, has not charged anyone either.

Everyone is pointing to someone else and saying “not my job.”

Saving Democracy is everyone’s job, because we are all stakeholders in our future.

To restate some of the facts, the details of the specific criminal DOGE conduct in question here is documented in a sworn federal court filing. On January 16, 2026, the federal Department of Justice told a Maryland federal court that DOGE personnel inside the Social Security Administration had done three things SSA was not authorized to do. They moved SSA data to a Cloudflare server that the agency had never approved, and SSA cannot now say what data was moved or whether copies still exist. They emailed a sealed file containing personal information on roughly one thousand people to the Department of Homeland Security, copying Steve Davis, Musk’s top deputy at DOGE; SSA still cannot open the file to see what was in it. And one of them, working in his official SSA capacity, signed a Voter Data Agreement with a political group whose stated goal was to find evidence of voter fraud and overturn election results.

NPR reporting added that DOGE engineer Aram Moghaddassi, holding simultaneous roles at SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, emailed the deputy chief of staff for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on March 19, 2025 from a DHS account: “We’re working on SAVE access for Florida law enforcement now. On our end, Florida voter registration and voting data would be helpful immediately to check for voter fraud.”

Antonio Gracias, a Musk ally working with DOGE inside SSA, was copied on Moghaddassi’s request and, eleven days later at a Wisconsin rally with Musk on March 30, publicly claimed that a sample review of Social Security data matched against voter rolls had identified noncitizens who registered and voted. Judge Hollander’s temporary restraining order prohibiting DOGE access to SSA data had been in effect since March 20.

SSA’s former chief data officer Chuck Borges filed a whistleblower complaint warning that DOGE personnel copied the Numident database, containing records on more than three hundred million Americans, to an unauthorized cloud environment without following required security protocols. SSA forced him to resign three days after the complaint, and his attorney Debra Katz confirmed after the January 2026 court filing that the federal government had conceded the substance of his allegations.

California Penal Code section 502, the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, makes it a felony for any person who knowingly accesses and without permission alters, damages, deletes, destroys, or otherwise uses any data, computer, computer system, or computer network in order to either devise or execute any scheme to defraud or wrongfully control or obtain money, property, or data. Subsection (c)(2) reaches anyone who knowingly accesses and without permission takes, copies, or makes use of any data from a computer system or network. Section 502.7 provides enhancements for personal identifying information, and section 530.5 reaches the willful obtaining of personal identifying information of another for any unlawful purpose, with venue provisions placing jurisdiction in any county where the victim resided when the information was used.

California has more than thirty million residents whose personal information sits in the Numident database that was copied to the unauthorized server, and their data being copied to a server they did not consent to is itself the harm. The statute does not require proof that any specific resident’s bank account was drained or identity stolen, because the unauthorized handling of their information is the crime. SSA’s admission that it cannot determine what data was moved is not a problem with the case. It is the premise of the case. Discovery, the Inspector General’s review, and forensic examination of the Cloudflare environment will develop the contents question. The elements of the offense are met by the unauthorized handling the federal filing already concedes.

Complex cases involving organized criminal conduct get built in tiers. Prosecutors charge the people whose acts the record documents and develop the chain upward through the testimony, documents, and cooperation that subpoena power produces. Nobody charges the top of an organized chain on day one. They charge the people whose conduct sits in the record and let the discovery process build the case against the leadership.

Tier one in this matter consists of the people whose documented acts meet the elements of section 502 on the federal admissions and public reporting now in the record.

The unnamed DOGE Team member who signed the Voter Data Agreement on March 24, 2025 in his SSA capacity is a felony defendant under section 502. He signed the document. The federal government concedes the agreement bypassed SSA’s data exchange procedures and triggered Hatch Act referrals to the Office of Special Counsel.

Aram Moghaddassi is a felony defendant under section 502. He sent the March 19 email from a DHS account soliciting Florida voter data to match against SSA records.

Antonio Gracias is a felony defendant under section 502 and section 530.5. He received a copy of Moghaddassi’s email. He stood on a Wisconsin rally stage eleven days later, with Musk next to him, and told the crowd that a sample review of Social Security data matched against voter rolls had identified noncitizens who registered and voted. The statement is admissible as a party admission and forecloses any claim that he did not know SSA data was being matched against voter rolls.

Tier two consists of Steven Edward Davis. The federal filing names him as copied on the encrypted DHS transmission. His criminal exposure depends on what discovery shows about whether he opened the file, what he did with the contents, and whether he directed the transmission. Compulsory process under Penal Code section 923 will develop that record.

Tier three consists of Elon Musk. Judge Theodore Chuang of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland found in March 2025 that Musk’s role had been and would continue to be as the leader of DOGE, with the same duties and degree of continuity as if he formally held the position. The federal court finding sits in the public record and Musk does not contest it. The chain of conduct now documented runs through Moghaddassi’s March 19 email, Gracias’s copy on that email, the unnamed signer’s March 24 Voter Data Agreement, and Gracias’s March 30 rally-stage claim of results from the SSA-voter-roll matching operation, with Musk standing next to Gracias as Gracias made the claim.

That chain is the foundation for an investigation rather than the closing argument at trial. Penal Code section 31 and People v. Williams, 49 Cal.4th 405 (2010), reach an aider and abettor as a principal where the prosecution can establish knowledge of the criminal purpose and intent to facilitate it. Trial-ready evidence on the top of any organized chain comes from the testimony and documents the lower tiers produce under subpoena pressure. The sequencing follows standard practice for complex criminal investigations involving coordinated misconduct.

This is computer fraud against the personal information of California residents, documented by the federal Department of Justice in a sworn court filing, committed by named federal employees acting outside the scope of their federal duties as the federal agency that employed them has formally conceded.

The defense will move to remove any state criminal prosecution to federal court under 28 U.S.C. section 1442. That motion changes the courtroom, not the law. California

prosecutes the case in federal court under California statutes, the same way the Attorney General’s office has handled removed cases before. Moving the case to federal court doesn’t magically destroy it.

AG Bonta has the evidence, the statute, the jurisdiction, and the institutional capacity. His office prosecutes section 502 cases regularly. He has every tool the law gives a California attorney general for this conduct.

AG Bonta will either use those tools or, through inaction, refuse to enforce the law against the people who believe they are above it.

Constituents filed police reports in February, contacted county prosecutors, and named the conduct, the defendants, and the statutes. The system answered with procedural language. That answer was wrong then and it is wrong now, because the conduct is documented, the defendants are named, the statute is on the books, the jurisdiction is clear, and the Supremacy Clause defense has been collapsed by the federal agency’s own admissions.

Every American with a Social Security number is in the database that was breached, which means residents of every state are victims, and every state has identity theft and computer fraud statutes that reach this conduct under venue provisions placing jurisdiction where the victim lives.

The viable criminal case exists in all fifty states. We are starting with California because it has more residents in the breached database than any other state, with the Numident covering more than thirty million Californians, and because AG Bonta has filed more civil suits against the Trump administration than nearly any other state attorney general.

The campaign will roll forward state by state from here: New York next, then Maryland, Washington, Massachusetts. AG Bonta has the chance to be the AG who opened the criminal door, the one who acted first while every other Democratic attorney general in the country hoped things would just sort themselves out.

Mr. Bonta, you were elected to enforce California’s laws without fear or favor. You took an oath to do that job. The federal Department of Justice has admitted the conduct. The statute is on your books. The victims are your constituents. Now is your moment, and the nation is watching. All you have to do is your job, the same way the rest of us are expected to do ours.

Below you will find everything you need to act today. Who to contact in AG Bonta's coalition, what to say, where to submit letters to the editor, which subreddits to post to, and how to put the AG's office on notice yourself.

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You can find the memo I am submitting, as well as a version you can put your information on and submit by clicking anywhere on this sentence. It is in the shop listed for $0.00.


Here is who you contact and what you say.

An elected official keeps his job by keeping his coalition together. AG Bonta’s coalition is not the entire California electorate. It is five clusters of people whose support he cannot afford to lose. The coalition organizations endorsed him publicly. That endorsement is a public position they took, and any California voter is entitled to ask them how they feel about the AG they backed deferring on a documented criminal matter affecting Californians.

If you are a member of one of these organizations, your voice carries the most weight. If you are not a member but you noticed the endorsement, your voice still carries weight, because the endorsement was a public commitment and you are a Californian asking whether that commitment still stands.

You can use the script that fits your relationship to the organization. Both work.

Cluster one. Public-sector labor.

Bonta’s reelection coalition runs through public-sector unions. SEIU California, the California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers, the California Nurses Association, the California Professional Firefighters, UFCW Western States, and Teamsters California Joint Council 7 all endorsed him in 2022 and again for 2026. Their political directors take his calls.

SEIU California: contact form at seiuca.org/contact-us. Phone 916-442-3838.

California Teachers Association: dgoldberg@cta.org. Phone 650-697-1400.

California Federation of Teachers: mhardy@cft.org. Phone 916-446-2788.

California Nurses Association: press@nationalnursesunited.org. Phone 510-273-2200.

UFCW Western States: jthompson@ufcw324.org.

Teamsters California Joint Council 7: bloch@teamstersjc7.org. Phone 510-562-3600.

California Professional Firefighters: brice@cpf.org. Phone 916-921-9111.

If you are a member, sample message:

“I am a member of [union]. The federal Department of Justice admitted in a January 2026 court filing in AFSCME v. SSA that DOGE personnel transferred Social Security Administration data to an unauthorized server, sent encrypted files containing Californians’ personal information to other agencies, and signed an agreement with a political group seeking to overturn election results. California Penal Code section 502 covers this conduct. AG Bonta has not opened a criminal investigation. I am asking [union] to communicate directly with AG Bonta and ask him whether he will. The union does not need to take a public position. A private call from your office to his is what I am asking for.”

If you are not a member, sample message:

“I am a California voter. I noticed [union] endorsed AG Bonta in 2022 and again in 2026. The federal Department of Justice has now admitted in a court filing that DOGE personnel committed computer fraud affecting Californians’ Social Security data. AG Bonta has filed civil suits but has not opened a criminal investigation under California Penal Code section 502, which covers this conduct. I am writing because the AG you endorsed is deferring on documented criminal conduct against Californians, and I want to know how that aligns with what your organization expected from him. I am asking your organization to communicate directly with AG Bonta about whether he will open the investigation.”

Cluster two. The Filipino American and Asian Pacific Islander political base.

Bonta is the first Filipino American Attorney General in California history. His political identity runs through this community. The Filipino American Democratic Caucus, the Asian Pacific Islander Democratic Caucus of the California Democratic Party, the broader API donor and activist community in the Bay Area, Daly City, Vallejo, and the East Bay are people Bonta knows personally and relies on.

Filipino American Democratic Caucus, California Democratic Party. Chair Cameron Sasai, Mayor of Pinole. Phone 510-710-4626. Contact through California Democratic Party headquarters at info@cadem.org or call 916-442-5707.

Asian Pacific Islander Caucus, California Democratic Party. Chair Hon. Harris Mojadedi. Email cademparty.apicaucus@gmail.com. Phone 510-512-4823.

If you are part of the community, sample message:

“I am a supporter of the [caucus] and part of the community it represents. AG Bonta has received credible evidence in a federal court filing that DOGE personnel committed computer fraud affecting Californians’ Social Security data. California Penal Code section 502 covers this conduct. I am asking the caucus to communicate directly with AG Bonta and ask him whether he will open a criminal investigation. He is our AG. We helped elect him. We are asking him to do his job.”

If you are not part of the community, sample message:

“I am a California voter. I noticed the [caucus] is part of the political base that helped elect AG Bonta as the first Filipino American Attorney General in California history. The federal Department of Justice has now admitted in a court filing that DOGE personnel committed computer fraud affecting Californians’ Social Security data. AG Bonta has not opened a criminal investigation under California Penal Code section 502. I am asking the caucus to communicate directly with the AG’s office about whether his deferral on this matter aligns with the expectations of the community that put him in office.”

Cluster three. Alameda County and the East Bay.

Bonta’s home county. He served on the Alameda City Council. His Assembly seat went to his wife Mia Bonta. The political relationships that made his career run through this geography. The Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, and the Bay Area progressive donor base know him personally.

Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. Chair Igor Tregub. Site contact form at acdems.org. Mailing address PO Box 3937, Hayward 94540.

If you are a member or East Bay resident, sample message:

“I am [a member of, an active participant in] the Alameda County Democratic infrastructure that supported Rob Bonta from his time on the Alameda City Council through his current term as Attorney General. AG Bonta has received credible evidence of computer fraud against Californians under Penal Code section 502. I am asking the [committee or club] to communicate directly with AG Bonta and ask him whether he will open a criminal investigation. We are the people who put him in office. We are asking him to act.”

If you are not a member, sample message:

“I am a Californian writing because I noticed the Alameda County Democratic Party supported Rob Bonta from his city council days through his current term as AG. The federal Department of Justice has admitted in a court filing that DOGE personnel committed computer fraud affecting Californians’ Social Security data. AG Bonta has not opened a criminal investigation under California Penal Code section 502. I am asking the [committee or club] to communicate with the AG’s office about whether his deferral aligns with the expectations of the community that built his career.”

Cluster four. The plaintiffs’ bar and consumer protection lawyers.

The trial lawyers funded Bonta’s campaign. Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy alone gave thirty-nine thousand dollars in a six-day window in June 2024. The Consumer Attorneys of California is a politically active bar association whose members care about the kind of corporate-and-government misconduct the DOGE conduct exemplifies.

Consumer Attorneys of California. Government Affairs office in Sacramento. Visit caoc.org for current officers.

If you are a California attorney, sample message:

“I am a California attorney [practicing in, specializing in] [practice area]. The federal Department of Justice admitted in AFSCME v. SSA that DOGE personnel committed conduct that California Penal Code section 502 covers. The federal court filing forecloses the Supremacy Clause defense. The case is doctrinally clean. I am asking [organization] to communicate with AG Bonta about whether his office will open a criminal investigation. The legal infrastructure exists. The political will is the missing piece.”

If you are not an attorney, sample message:

“I am a California voter. I noticed the consumer protection bar has been a financial and political backer of AG Bonta. The federal Department of Justice has admitted that DOGE personnel committed computer fraud affecting Californians’ Social Security data. AG Bonta has not opened a criminal investigation under California Penal Code section 502. I am asking [organization] to communicate with the AG about whether his deferral

aligns with what the consumer protection community expected from him.”

Cluster five. State legislators in Bonta’s immediate circle.

A state legislator from his own party publicly calling on Bonta to act lands harder than any constituent contact. The legislators who can do this are the ones who served with him in the Assembly, who chair committees with relevant jurisdiction, or who hold leadership positions.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, AD-18. The AG’s wife. Phone 916-319-2018. Email assemblymember.bonta@assembly.ca.gov.

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, AD-16. Chairs the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. Direct subject matter jurisdiction over data privacy and computer crime. Phone 916-319-2016. Email assemblymember.bauer-kahan@assembly.ca.gov.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, AD-14. Chairs Appropriations. Phone 916-319-2014. Email assemblymember.wicks@assembly.ca.gov.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra, AD-25. Chairs Judiciary. Phone 916-319-2025. Email assemblymember.kalra@assembly.ca.gov.

Speaker Robert Rivas, AD-29. Phone 916-319-2029. Email assemblymember.rivas@assembly.ca.gov.

Senate President pro Tem Monique Limón, SD-21. Phone 916-651-4021. Email senator.limon@senate.ca.gov.

If you are a constituent, sample message:

“I am a constituent in [district]. AG Bonta has received credible evidence in the AFSCME v. SSA federal court filing that DOGE personnel committed conduct that California Penal Code section 502 covers. California has more than thirty million residents whose personal information was in the breached database. I am asking the [Senator or Assemblymember] to publicly call on AG Bonta to open a criminal investigation. The conduct is documented. The statute is clear. The jurisdiction is settled. What is missing is the political will. A public statement from your office could provide it.”

If you are not a constituent, sample message:

“I am a Californian writing because of your committee role and your relationship with AG Bonta. The federal Department of Justice has admitted in a court filing that DOGE personnel committed computer fraud affecting Californians under California Penal Code section 502. AG Bonta has not opened a criminal investigation. I am asking you to publicly call on the AG to act. A public statement from a member of his own party with [Privacy and Consumer Protection / Judiciary / leadership] jurisdiction would provide the political cover his office is looking for.”

Cluster Six. Media.

The pressure on AG Bonta works when his coalition hears about it from multiple directions at once. Two things you can do that amplify what the unions, caucuses, county committees, attorneys, and legislators are already hearing.

You can send the article to a California paper, or write your own message. Letters to the editor and op-eds are not aimed at AG Bonta. They are aimed at the people in his coalition. A SEIU political director who already received a member email this week is more likely to act if she also reads about the case in the Sacramento Bee the next morning.

CalMatters. Op-eds to commentary@calmatters.org. Word count 650.

Sacramento Bee. Letters to letters@sacbee.com. Word count 150. Op-eds to letters@sacbee.com or to opinion editor Hannah Holzer at hholzer@sacbee.com. Word count 750.

Los Angeles Times. Letters to letters@latimes.com. Word count 150. Op-eds to oped@latimes.com. Word count 750.

San Francisco Chronicle. Letters to letters@sfchronicle.com. Word count 200. Op-eds to forum@sfchronicle.com. Word count 650.

Sample 150-word letter to the editor:

“On January 16, 2026, the federal Department of Justice admitted in a court filing in

"On January 16, 2026, the federal Department of Justice admitted in a court filing in AFSCME v. Social Security Administration that Department of Government Efficiency personnel transferred Social Security Administration data to an unauthorized server, sent encrypted files containing personal information of Californians to other agencies, and signed an agreement with a political group seeking to overturn election results. California has more than thirty million residents whose data was in the breached database. California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Penal Code section 502, and California's identity theft statute, Penal Code section 530.5, both cover this conduct. Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed fifty-four civil suits against the Trump administration but no criminal investigations. Civil suits do not put people in jail, and jail is what is appropriate when criminal statutes are violated. The federal Department of Justice has conceded what happened. AG Bonta has the evidence, the statutes, the jurisdiction, and the institutional capacity. Whether he will use them is what California voters need to know. [Your name, your city.]"

Before posting to r/California or your local subreddit, check the comments below this article to see if another reader has already posted the thread. If they have, click their link, upvote the thread, and add a substantive comment to push it up the algorithm. If no one has posted to your subreddit yet, submit the article and then drop your Reddit thread link in the comments below this article so other Californians reading here can find your thread and amplify it. Relevant subreddits include r/California, r/LosAngeles, r/SanFrancisco, r/Sacramento, r/SanDiego, r/Oakland, and r/BayArea.

Reddit is not aimed at AG Bonta. Reddit is aimed at the constituent who reads the thread and then calls SEIU’s local office because they are a member, or who emails the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee because they live in Hayward. The platform is a recruitment channel for the stochastic activism cluster work. It equips people with the psychological and tactical frameworks to themselves become effective activists.

Sample Reddit submission post. Please put it in your own words. Don’t engage with trolls.

Title: “California AG Rob Bonta has the evidence to open a criminal investigation into Musk and DOGE. He hasn’t.”

Body: “The federal Department of Justice admitted in a January 2026 court filing in AFSCME v. SSA that DOGE personnel moved Social Security Administration data to an unauthorized Cloudflare server, emailed encrypted files containing personal information on Californians to DHS, and signed a Voter Data Agreement with a political group whose stated aim was overturning election results. California has more than thirty million residents whose data was in the breached database.

California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Penal Code section 502, covers this conduct. So does California’s identity theft statute, Penal Code section 530.5. The federal court in J. Does v. Musk has already found that Musk operationally led DOGE during the relevant period.

AG Bonta has filed fifty-four civil suits against the Trump administration. Civil suits do not put people in jail. Criminal investigation is what is appropriate when criminal statutes are violated.

What do you think of all this?”


Direct contact with AG Bonta’s office.

Phone: 916-445-9555. Sacramento headquarters.

Public correspondence portal: oag.ca.gov/contact.

Mail: Attorney General Rob Bonta, California Department of Justice, 1300 I Street, Sacramento, CA 95814.

When you contact the office, do not just ask them to act. Tell them what else you are doing. List the endorsing organizations you are emailing. Name the California papers you are submitting letters to. Name the legislators you are writing. The AG’s office tracks where pressure is coming from, and the difference between a constituent who calls and a constituent who calls while putting the office on notice that the request is being circulated through the coalition, the press, and the legislature is significant. The first one gets a procedural response. The second one gets read at chief of staff level.

Be honest about what you actually did. If you emailed two organizations, name those two. If you submitted one letter to the editor, name that one. The AG’s staff can verify whether named organizations received contact, and overstating the outreach burns credibility for everyone using this toolkit.

Sample script for the phone call or written submission to the AG’s office:

“My name is [your name] and I am a California resident in [your city]. I am calling to formally ask the Attorney General to open a criminal investigation under California Penal Code section 502 into the DOGE personnel whose conduct the federal Department of Justice admitted in AFSCME v. SSA on January 16, 2026. I am also writing to put the office on notice that I am contacting organizations including [list the ones you are emailing], legislators including [list the ones you are emailing], and California papers including [list the ones you are submitting to], to ask them where they stand on the AG’s deferral on this matter. I want this call recorded as a constituent request and as notice that the matter is being escalated through the coalition. Please confirm you have logged it.”


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