Top job: California controller
Biggest splash: During Yee’s tenure as controller, her agency uncovered tens of millions of dollars of local government misspending and questionable financial practices at state agencies.
Particulars: Yee, 66, was born to Chinese immigrant parents and grew up in San Francisco, where the family lived in a one-room apartment behind their dry cleaning business. Yee lives in the Bay Area with her husband, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs. She is a Democrat.
Campaign launch: March 2024

Yee served as state budget director under former Gov. Davis before winning a seat on the California State Board of Equalization in 2006 and again in 2010. She was elected state controller in 2014. Her audits and investigations from the controller’s office, she said, found more than $4 billion in misused funds. She won reelection in 2018, and her second term ended in January 2023.

Yee has emphasized her financial background and budget experience, both of which could appeal to California voters as the state grapples with a historic shortfall. Budget projections suggest the next governor could walk into a challenging fiscal environment if state revenue doesn’t rebound.

When she announced her campaign, Yee spoke about how her modest beginnings crystallized her focus on the importance of financial health. As a young girl, she managed the books of the family business and saw firsthand how a bad week meant cutting back on groceries and other essential spending for her and her five siblings, she said.

A 2022 Times report detailed how Yee gave behind-the-scenes advice to a politically connected company seeking a $600-million no-bid government contract to provide COVID-19 masks and raised questions about her involvement. Yee has said that she had no financial interest in the contract and that the advice was the same she would offer any business owners.

Yee serves as a vice chair of the California Democratic Party.

Former President Trump’s campaign confirmed to Fox News on Saturday that some of its internal communications were hacked. 

Liberal media outlet Politico had reached out to the campaign after the news outlet started receiving internal Trump documents. 

“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” said Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign.

“On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a Vice Presidential nominee,” he added. 

PAKISTANI MAN WITH TIES TO IRAN CHARGED IN FOILED ASSASSINATION PLOT POTENTIALLY TARGETING TRUMP, DOJ SAYS

Cheung noted that the hack allegedly by Iran came, “after recent reports of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump around the same time as the Butler, PA tragedy.”

He added: “The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House. Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”

The documents sent to Politico included a 271-page “dossier” the Trump campaign had put together on his eventual running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, that dated back to February, the outlet said. 

It included Vance’s past stances on issues, statements and previous criticisms of Trump in a section called “POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES.”

The Trump campaign didn’t say if they had contacted law enforcement over the hacking. 

The documents sent to Politico included a 271-page “dossier” the Trump campaign had put together on his eventual running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, that dated back to February, the outlet said.  (Ryan Collerd/AFP via Getty Images)

It was not immediately clear if Politico used any of the hacked material in its reporting. Fox News Digital has reached out to Politico for comment. 

The outlet reported that it began receiving emails from someone identifying themselves as “Robert” using an anonymous AOL account on July 22, just days after the Republican National Convention ended and Trump announced Vance as his running mate. 

“I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from,” the person reportedly told Politico when reporters asked how “Robert” obtained the documents. “Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.”

“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” said Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

“Robert” also sent documents on Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who was reportedly considered as Trump’s vice presidential pick, and claimed he had a “variety of documents from [Trump’s] legal and court documents to internal campaign discussions.”

The Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign were infamously hacked during the 2016 election, with the U.S. putting the blame on Russia. Some of the documents were released by WikiLeaks. 

Ever since Donald Trump said Thursday that Willie Brown had bashed Vice President Kamala Harris years ago during a scary helicopter ride together, the former president has insisted that the story is true. This despite the fact that Brown, the former California Speaker, said he had never done business with Trump, let alone been on a flight with him.

But it turns out that another California official had.

In an interview Saturday, Nate Holden, the former longtime Los Angeles city councilman and state senator, recalled vividly what happened one day in 1990 when he had been invited by Trump to fly from Manhattan to Atlantic City on his chopper.

It was midday, Holden said, and he had just been served a drink when all of a sudden the hydraulic system failed, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in New Jersey.

On Thursday, Trump said in impromptu remarks to the press that he and Brown “were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing.” Trump said: “This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie, he was — he was a little concerned. So I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about [Harris].”

Holden, 95, was incredulous that Trump could confuse the two men — “the short Black guy from Northern California and the tall Black guy from Southern California. But as they say, we all look the same,” he said with a laugh.

The Trump campaign hasn’t commented about what seems at best a mistaken identity, and worse, a fabricated story meant to discredit Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

After Brown denied that he had never gotten on a helicopter with Trump, the national and international media have been all over the story. And Trump has not only stuck by his statements but posted on social media that he had evidence in “logs, maintenance records, and witnesses” to back up his account.

But another person on that helicopter ride was Barbara Res, once a top executive in charge of construction and development at the Trump Organization. In her 2013 book, “All Alone on the 68th Floor,” Res essentially corroborates Holden’s account of what happened.

“As we pulled out over the Hudson, the helicopter began to shake,” she wrote. “Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing. By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy. Donald loves to tell the story that Nate, an African American, turned white, but as I recall Donald was pretty white himself.”

Holden said Saturday that he called Brown shortly after seeing Trump’s comments about the helicopter incident on television. “I just thought Donald Trump’s got a problem. He had almost two fatal accidents, one with Willie Brown and one with me,” Holden said. So he asked Brown: “Willie, were you in a helicopter with Trump which almost crashed?”

Holden was in the copter with Trump to discuss the Manhattan developer’s desire to build on the site of the historic Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in the Los Angeles Mid-Wilshire District. Holden represented the district at the time.

Trump “wanted to meet with Nate because Nate was very, very influential,” Res said in an interview, noting that she brought Holden to New York. “And when we were going for the meeting, Donald said, ‘I can’t, I have to go to Atlantic City. Let’s have our meeting on the helicopter.” (Trump’s project on that Wilshire site got entangled in litigation and never came together.)

Holden said that he knew Trump was trying to impress him. On board, Holden recalled, “Trump said, ‘Look at the skyline. It’s the best in the world.’ ”

But Holden wasn’t impressed, and said he was livid when the aircraft had mechanical problems. “I couldn’t believe they didn’t maintain their helicopter. I was raising hell because they put my life in jeopardy.” Only a year earlier, in 1989, three executives of Trump’s casinos were killed, along with two others when a chopper crashed over Fork River in New Jersey.

As for Trump, Holden said, “He was speechless. He turned white as snow, glued to his seat.”

“There was no hint of any real danger that I perceived,” Res said. “Trump was terrified. He was scared s—less,” Res said. “He just lost three executives on the flight that he said he was scheduled to be on, which of course he was never scheduled to be on that flight. But, you know, why not make use of three dead good employees.”

In a similar way, both Res and Holden said Trump told his own version of what happened on the helicopter with Holden.

“Trump knew Willie Brown was the speaker of the Assembly and Nate Holden was a councilman, and so he wanted to make it more important,” Res said. “Also, he wanted to include a comment about Harris and I don’t think you could make a connection between Harris and Holden.”

Said Holden: “It makes the story more juicy.”