Oakland’s embattled mayor Sheng Thao gave her first public remarks Monday after federal agents raided her home. 

“I want to be crystal clear. I have done nothing wrong,” Thao said, reading prepared remarks from the podium. “I can tell you with confidence that this investigation is not about me. I have not been charged with a crime, and I am confident I will not be charged with a crime because I am innocent.” 

Her remarks, carried by FOX 2, come four days after FBI agents carried boxes out of the home she shares with her son and partner as part of an investigation that included searches of two other houses owned by another family.

Thao said the timing of the very public raid was “troubling” as it came days after backers of a mayoral recall were informed by the city clerk that they had collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, likely in November. 

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Thao derided the recall campaign as a waste of time and resources. She suggested that a handful of billionaires from San Francisco and Piedmont are “hellbent” on running her out of office. 

“I want to know why the day following the qualification of a recall election, funded by some of the richest people in the Bay Area, seemed like the right day to execute a warrant,” Thao said. 

FBI agents carry boxes out of a home associated with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao during a raid in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, June 20, 2024.  (Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)

Backers of the recall say public safety and economic vitality have worsened under the politically progressive mayor, and that she should not have fired Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong.

It appears Thao and her son were home Thursday morning during the raid. She said her first priority was to make sure they were safe.

Agents also searched two homes owned by members of the politically influential Duong family that owns the recycling company Cal Waste Solutions. The firm has been investigated over campaign contributions to Thao and other elected city officials, the local news outlet Oaklandside reported in 2020.

Before resigning Monday, Thao’s attorney, Tony Brass, said that the Oakland Mayor was not the target of the recent investigation. 

“Mayor Thao is ready, willing and able to cooperate fully with federal investigators. She has nothing to hide,” Brass said. 

Brass resigned Monday after Mayor Thao gave a press conference without informing him, per reporting from KRON 4. 

Thao, 38, took office in 2023. She is of Hmong descent and says she grew up poor.

“And when my parents came to this country fleeing genocide, they never could have imagined that their daughter would one day be mayor of Oakland. I am my ancestors’ wildest dream,” she said. “And I am your mayor: Mayor Sheng Thao.”

Fox News Digital’s Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This week’s debate between President Biden and Donald Trump won’t produce much in the way of civil dialogue over the nation’s future. It’s more likely to resemble a demolition derby, with each contestant trying to knock the other off course.

And, let’s face it, many viewers will tune in mainly for the crashes.

The question isn’t who will win that series of collisions — it’s who will lose.

Presidential debates rarely transform an election. But Thursday’s showdown could change the momentum in this year’s contest — mostly because the stakes for Biden are so high.

The president is running about even with Trump in national polls, but he’s behind in the battleground states that will determine the outcome. He’s also battling the view among many voters in both parties that he’s too old to serve effectively for another four years.

Republicans have waged a relentless campaign to stoke those doubts. Biden “can’t put two sentences together,” the former president told supporters last month. “He can’t find the stairs off the stage.”

That’s a pretty low bar for Biden to clear. Last week, Trump belatedly realized his mistake and tried to reverse course, calling the president “a worthy debater.”

“I don’t want to underestimate him,” he explained.

Either way, the 90-minute debate will give the 81-year-old president an opportunity to show that he can not only find the stairs but think on his feet as well. If Biden doesn’t visibly pass that test, his campaign will have a hard time recovering.

Trump, who is 78, faces challenges too.

In his first debate against Biden in 2020, the then-president behaved like a disruptive bully and promptly dropped four points in the polls.

A similarly chaotic performance this week in Atlanta would help revive the anti-Trump coalition of voters that fired him last time.

If Trump blunders badly — he has been known to lapse into incoherence and confuse Biden with former President Obama — he too would face renewed questions about his mental fitness.

Again, the question isn’t so much who will win but who will lose. Candidates fail in debates by stumbling more often than they triumph through brilliant wordplay.

So the stakes are high for both candidates. The incentive will be to go on the attack, to try to push the other guy toward disaster.

The debate, hosted by CNN with correspondents Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as moderators, will spare viewers the tedium of opening statements. There will be no live audience, a demand Biden’s side made after witnessing the noisy enthusiasm of Trump supporters at earlier events. Each candidate’s microphone will be silenced while the other is speaking, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the 2020 debate, when Trump constantly interrupted Biden and the moderators.

I asked strategists from both parties what advice they would give each candidate.

Biden’s first task is to “demonstrate that he’s not too old to serve another term,” said Doug Sosnik, who advised President Clinton during his 1996 reelection campaign.

After that, Sosnik said, Biden “needs to have a clear narrative about his presidency, what his goals would be for a second term. And then he can go after Trump.”

Republican strategist Alex Conant agreed that Biden should try to steer the debate toward the future and away from a referendum on his stewardship of the economy, which has left most voters dissatisfied.

“He needs to make the debate about abortion and everything else Trump doesn’t want to talk about,” Conant said. “He should try to provoke Trump into overreacting … then get out of the way and let Trump destroy himself.”

One pitfall Biden needs to avoid: boasting about legislation he has passed or trying to convince voters that the economy is better than they think.

“He has to prosecute his political case against Donald Trump and not get bogged down, as incumbents often do … in defending his record,” said David Axelrod, who advised Obama during his 2012 reelection campaign.

Trump’s goals, no surprise, are pretty much the reverse of Biden’s. He wants to make the election a referendum on Biden’s first three years.

“My advice to Trump would be: ‘You are going to win this race on two issues: inflation and immigration. Those are the only two things you should be talking about,’” Conant said.

If the moderators or Biden ask Trump about his conviction on 34 felony charges in New York state, “he doesn’t need to engage in it,” Conant said.

Sosnik agreed. “Stick to a referendum,” he said. “Were you better off during [Trump’s] presidency or Biden’s?”

The hazard Trump needs to avoid: lapsing into complaints about the 2020 election, his conviction or his three pending criminal cases. That would reinforce the appearance “that he is only out for himself and settling old personal scores … [and] reminding people how chaotic and exhausting his presidency was,” Sosnik said.

So will Thursday’s debate change the direction of the race? Conant, the Republican, thinks it could.

“This is the most consequential debate we’ve had in recent memory,” he said. “Voters have major questions about each candidate. There’s an unusual number of undecided or third-party voters who might still be movable. If one of the candidates has a really bad night, that could be decisive.”

But Sosnik is skeptical that many undecided voters will bother watching “a debate between two candidates they dislike.”

“It will take a big moment where one of the candidates falls on his face to make it a game changer,” he said.

With four months remaining before election day, one evening in June won’t determine the winner. But Thursday could provide a pivotal moment — depending not on which candidate performs better but which performs worse.

Read more from columnist Doyle McManus on Trump and California: