Bryan Caforio Is Too Negative And Too Desperate To Be Trusted With The CA-25 Democratic Nomination Again

Katie Hill was endorsed by Judy Chu, one of the most fiercely progressive members of Congress

CA-25 has gradually gone from a deep red district to a blue district. In 2016 everyone though a Democrat would finally take over the congressional seat from a weak and extremist Republican incumbent, Steve Knight. A decade ago when Blue America was helping a parade of good Democrats, like Robert Rodriguez and then Lee Rogers battle Buck McKeon, in a humongous district that was basically most of what is now CA-25 plus most of what is now CA-08, the PVI was R+7. Today it stands at an even district. It should have been an easy win last cycle-- except that the Democrats had an absolutely terrible candidate, carpetbagger Bryan Caforio. Hillary won the district 50.3% to 43.6%. But on the same day thousands of Clinton voters refused to vote for Caforio, who lost to Knight 138,755 (53.1%) to 122,406 (46.9%). Recent polling shows many Democrats want Knight out but will not vote for Caforio.

Some candidates become better after an unsuccessful first run. Caforio hasn't. This cycle he's spent nearly all his efforts and energy trying to win the nearly meaningless endorsement of the California Democratic Party-- and saw the door slammed shut in his face this past weekend. And now he's getting desperate-- and very negative.

It's apparent that he cares exclusively about getting elected than flipping the 25th and that's why he is willing to viciously use baseless attacks against a strong, competent, progressive woman, Katie Hill, running for office. We've been working on flipping this district, slowly making progress, for over a decade. He was never involved in any way until the DCCC parachuted him out of nowhere in 2016. They wasted $3,164,363 (plus another $242,487 from Pelosi's SuperPAC) on his hopeless and inept campaign.

Caforio seems to have flipped out when the FEC report from the last quarter of 2017 was released and Katie had pulled ahead of him in fundraising, his supposed advantage over a grassroots candidate. She's now raised $693,079 to his $663,637. And then that polling above... So his immediate reaction was to panic and break his word about keeping the primary positive. A DCCC executive, furious that Caforio lied to them, sent me the disgusting Caforio memo that he's been circulating inside the California Party, "A Dozen Ways Katie Hill Doesn’t Share Our Values," a memo so filled with blatant lies and distortions that it cost him enough support to lose the party endorsement. I was told Caforio didn't want to send it out but that his chief consultant, Achim Bergmann, the sleaziest political operative in the business, forced his hand. One of Caforio's distorted lies is that Katie "repeatedly has expressed support for a flat tax, saying huge corporations and the wealthy shouldn’t pay more than ordinary people." This is the video on her website with her specific tax proposals. Does this sound like what Caforio calls it? He has nothing to offer so he tears down a progressive Democrat with the bullshit Bergmann feeds him.



The list is one ugly smear after another, lies that prove only one thing-- his unfitness for office (as a Democrat). For example, he feigned outrage that she was given a promotion and a $50,000 raise spread over 2 years. How dare a woman make that kind of money? This from a lowlife sleazy Beverly Hills attorney who makes over half a million dollars a year and tried passing himself off as a consumer advocate while advocating for the interests of Union Oil? L.A. Times reporter Javier Panzer caught him out on his bullshit.

[A]n examination of Caforio's six-year tenure at the Century City firm Susman Godfrey suggests his work more often involved being called upon by large corporations and multimillionaires from around the globe in times of legal need.

Caforio represented former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt during his contentious divorce proceedings in 2015. He was part of a legal team that defended Union Oil Co. of California in 2013 and 2014 when a group of 46 Montana residents accused the oil company of contaminating their property by letting petroleum seep from nearby storage tanks.

He also helped Skardon Baker, an executive with a downtown L.A. investment firm, defeat an architect who claimed he had been bilked out of $22,500 owed to him for designing a backyard cabana for the financier's Hancock Park home.

What a slimy character! And a phony. And a hypocrite. He said he was "only on the Union Oil case a few months" and he's so, so proud that he was able to trick the idiots at the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters to endorse him.

Since the launch of his campaign, Caforio has emphasized his legal career. He calls himself a consumer rights attorney in campaign material. When he spoke to The Times last fall he said he had a “history of taking on the toughest fights,” including suing Swiss bank UBS on behalf of an investor.

In that case, the investor wasn't exactly an average Joe. Caforio represented Egyptian activist investor Ahmed Hussein, who accused UBS of disrupting a proxy fight he was waging with the board of a healthcare company, according to federal court records.

Caforio and another attorney from his firm won Hussein a $2-million award from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Hussein-- using the same team of lawyers-- later sued UBS for more than $55 million in damages. UBS pegged Hussein's net worth at $400 million in 2012, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Though Hussein was a wealthy client, Caforio said it doesn't change the fact that he suffered losses. Caforio boasted of his own work that he "was still going up against one of the largest banks in the world."

The case was one of five listed on Susman Godfrey's online biography for Caforio under the heading "notable representations." That page was deleted sometime between April and August of this year but an online cache remains available.

Katie has all of the momentum and despite these provocations and lies, is continuing to run an entirely positive campaign because she knows that is what is best for the district and the country-- defeating Steve Knight. I called her and tried to get her to dish out a little of what Caforio is doing to her and she flat out refused. She told me she feels great about her positive progressive message and that she's not going to get drawn into any negativity with any of the other candidates. If he's still craving a business card that says "congressman" so badly, maybe Caforio will have better luck in 2020 in a different district.