Connect with us

Politics

Top California librarian questioned about missing $650K tied to Dolly Parton child literacy program

Published

on

Top California librarian questioned about missing 0K tied to Dolly Parton child literacy program

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

California state librarian Greg Lucas is facing scrutiny from lawmakers after roughly $650,000 tied to a statewide literacy program connected to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library could not be accounted for.

The issue surfaced during a Thursday Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education hearing, which examined how funds were distributed for California’s participation in the book-gifting program.

Documents shared by the subcommittee as part of its hearing agenda claim that a nonprofit created to help administer the program reported spending roughly $1.2 million, while bank statements provided to Senate budget staff showed $555,000 in expenditures, leaving about $649,000 without supporting documentation.

“I find this to be incredibly concerning,” said state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, chair of the subcommittee. “There’s $650,000 that’s been unaccounted for in a program, a bipartisan effort that was intended to increase literacy among children. This is incredibly serious.”

Advertisement

TRUMP ADMIN UNCOVERS ‘STAGGERING’ $8.6 BILLION IN SUSPECTED CALIFORNIA SMALL BUSINESS FRAUD

California state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez speaks during a press conference at Pasadena City Hall in Los Angeles County on June 23, 2025. (Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

State Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, also criticized the lack of documentation, saying the situation raised serious concerns about transparency and oversight.

“That makes no sense,” Grove said during the hearing. “And that reeks of horrific no transparency and potential fraud.”

The California state library did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Advertisement

Lawmakers said Senate budget staff had requested financial records from the Strong Reader Partnership, the nonprofit created to help administer the program, multiple times, including receipts, invoices and bank statements to corroborate expenses.

EX-NONPROFIT BOSS ALLEGEDLY SWIPED $1.2M MEANT FOR HOMELESS PROGRAMS TO FUND LAVISH LIFESTYLE, DA SAYS

Senate Bill 1183, signed in 2022, created California’s statewide Dolly Parton Imagination Library program, which sends free books to children from birth to age 5 to encourage early literacy. (Noah Sauve/iStock Editorial via Getty Images)

According to the subcommittee, those requests were made on several occasions between November 2025 and February 2026, but the documentation had not been provided.

During the hearing, Lucas acknowledged that lawmakers had received bank statements accounting for roughly $555,000 in spending but disputed the claim that the funds were unaccounted for.

Advertisement

“I don’t believe that’s correct,” he said. “I mean, we received a final report on the disposition of the money by the Strong Reader Partnership, which has expressed, and we’ve passed this on to you as well, the difficulty in obtaining some of this information because they no longer have any money or members of the partnership since the money was transferred to the Imagination Library.”

He added that his agency has repeatedly asked the nonprofit for additional records and pledged to continue requesting the information.

PROPOSED CALIFORNIA WEALTH TAX DRIVES BILLIONAIRE EXODUS TO FLORIDA REAL ESTATE, LOCALS CONFIRM

Members of the California state Senate, during a hearing on education, speak with Greg Lucas, California’s top librarian, on March 12, 2026. (Credit: California State Senate)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Advertisement

A spokesperson for the state library told ABC10 in a statement: “The California State Library takes seriously its responsibility to ensure transparency and accountability in the taxpayer dollars entrusted to it. The State Library has provided the Legislature with all documentation in its possession and has repeatedly requested additional records from the Strong Reader partnership. The California State Library remains committed to cooperating fully with all legislative oversight and maintaining accountability in the administration of public funds.”

Pérez gave Lucas seven days to produce the financial records, saying the subcommittee expected invoices and receipts detailing how the money was spent.

Advertisement

Politics

Biden special counsel’s ‘runaway train’ scooped up sensitive lawmaker info: ‘Abuse of power’

Published

on

Biden special counsel’s ‘runaway train’ scooped up sensitive lawmaker info: ‘Abuse of power’

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump swept up text messages from nearly 50 members of Congress, bypassing a required review process in what one victim alleged is a direct constitutional violation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the situation is more proof Smith’s probe was a “runaway train” of abuses of power, and the elder statesman and Senate Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., jointly released their filings Tuesday evening.

Grassley and Johnson’s findings were from a full-scale probe of Operation Arctic Frost, the code name for Smith’s endeavor to investigate Trump for alleged corruption and election malfeasance, an operation top Senate Republicans call “worse than Watergate.”

LEGAL WAR ON TRUMP’S AGENDA GAINS FIREPOWER AS FEDERAL LAWYERS DEFECT TO DEMOCRATS

Advertisement

Jack Smith, former U.S. special counsel, arrives for a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., Dec. 17, 2025. (Getty Images)

Forty-four members of Congress had the contents of their text messages obtained and reviewed by Smith’s team in a way that bypassed protocol. A “filter team” was tasked with reviewing millions of documents in the case and should have had first crack at determining whether such messages were relevant or potentially violated statute or ethics.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., one of the lawmakers whose texts were swept up in this way, said Tuesday such reviews amounted to clear violations of the Constitution’s speech and debate clause that protects lawmakers from being questioned in “any other place” than the Capitol for legislative acts.

Internal communications have been historically included in that clause in the courts as technology has advanced.

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES HEAD TO CAPITOL HILL FOR FIRST CONGRESSIONAL APPEARANCE SINCE 2019

Advertisement

Stefanik said in a statement that the new records prove Smith’s team “unlawfully and unconstitutionally accessed my private text messages, along with 43 other Members of Congress, in clear violation of the Constitution.”

She said she long suspected there had been “unconstitutional spy[ing] on members of Congress.”

The records were provided by the Trump Justice Department to Grassley and Johnson, which the chairmen said indicated Smith’s team had “circumvented its own filter review process.” The process is additionally meant to protect attorney-client privilege, they said in a statement.

OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE TORCHES TRUMP ADMIN IN LATEST COURTROOM SHOWDOWN, REFERS ATTORNEY FOR BAR REVIEW

Former special counsel Jack Smith says the Pledge of Allegiance before he prepares to testify during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill Jan. 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Al Drago/Getty Images)

Advertisement

The news also complicated some of Smith’s prior depositions under oath, including an excerpt in which he answered “no” to a question from a congressional counsel whether records he requested from congresspeople included text messages.

Johnson called the situation a “grotesque example” of Biden-era “weaponization” of the executive branch.

“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley added Tuesday.

“Based on the information that’s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, Biden DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues who were outside the scope of the government’s investigation.”

Grassley added that he hopes Democrats caught up in the otherwise bipartisan text tranche will finally discard their partisanship and recognize the severity of the alleged violations by Smith.

Advertisement

He also indicated he planned to recall Smith before Congress to “hold him accountable.”

Of the 44 members swept up in the text reviews, several were Democrats, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington.

Grassley, Johnson and Stefanik were also swept up in the situation, along with top figures like senators Mike Lee, R-Utah; Josh Hawley, R-Mo.; Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska; Rand Paul, R-Ky., former Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; and the late Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER

Former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was one of the victims, along with current House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as well as House Freedom Caucus member Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin of New York, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins of Georgi, and prominent Trump critic Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

Advertisement

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Several lawmakers sounded off on the news soon after Grassley announced his findings, including Hawley, who called for “everyone involved [to] be prosecuted.”

“Joe Biden’s DOJ not only tapped my phone; I just learned they illegally obtained my texts with members of President Trump’s administration,” the Missourian fumed.

Paul called the allegations a “blatant abuse of power and exactly what our Founders warned about,” while citing Smith’s past denial under oath.

Fox News Digital reached out to a representative for Smith for comment.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

Politics

After lawsuit, ICE pauses construction of Bay Area detention facility

Published

on

After lawsuit, ICE pauses construction of Bay Area detention facility

The federal government agreed to temporarily hold off on construction of a planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Northern California.

The voluntary pause until Sept. 9 comes after the California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County officials sued the Trump administration last month to block the facility from being developed near Gilroy. The lawsuit remains ongoing.

“This pause in the construction, demolition, and development at the site of the challenged ICE facility is a significant step towards protecting our people, our communities, and our environment while the case remains ongoing,” Bonta said in a statement Monday night.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

State and local officials believe the facility will be used for short-term detention of up to 150 people at a time, though ICE denied that it would be a detention center.

Advertisement

Community members and advocates for immigrants swiftly opposed the project. ICE has consistently looked to increase its detention capacity in California, where eight detention centers can now hold a combined 9,000 people, though the state has long been a thorn in the agency’s side.

The halt is part of a compromise between both sides involved in the legal action. After the state and county submitted a request for the court to temporarily halt the project, a hearing was set for Oct. 7.

Now, state and federal officials jointly requested that the court move up the hearing by at least a month. The agreement also extends how much time the federal government has to respond.

A federal judge signed off on the agreement Monday night.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San José, alleges that the leased land is zoned exclusively for agricultural use and that the federal government violated laws requiring state and county notification, as well as procedural steps before beginning construction.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Politics

Why Supreme Court Justices Are Asking for More Security

Published

on

Supreme Court justices are asking lawmakers on Capitol Hill to increase their 2027 budget, with most of the additional funding earmarked for security. Ann E. Marimow, a New York Times reporter, explains why the justices say these measures are necessary to protect them from rising threats.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending