That Horrible Horrible Gil Cisneros!

Tuesday evening we ran a post, Gil Cisneros-- Already As Bad As We Predicted and around the same time I was on David Feldman's podcast and Pacifica Network radio show, also talking about Cisneros' decision to join the right-wing coup against Pelosi that is being backed by murky corporate interests and the No Labels cabal financed by Rupert Murdoch and his family, as well as other right-wing billionaires. In passing, I brought up that Cisneros lost in the Orange County and San Bernardino portions of the district but was miraculously saved at the last minute by some suspicious votes that were suddenly reported from Hacienda Heights in Los Angeles County. The reason all the other Democrats running in far less politically hospitable districts were doing so much better than Cisneros included all the ads Paul Ryan's SuperPAC put out about a scandal about Cisneros soliciting a young mother and Democratic Assembly candidate for sex.



At the time, I wrote that Melissa Fazli was "running for the state Assembly (AD 55) after having run for DNC vice chair. She has a great reputation among Democratic activists in Orange County and she put out a horrifying press release about Cisneros." This is the original press release from Fazli:

I have seen and heard things that should be yelled from the top of Mount Whitney when it comes to other candidates, especially those running for Congressional District 39. I have heard lies and seen inappropriate behavior. I have spoken privately with others about some of the things that I have witnessed and I have kept quiet until now.

On February 24, 2018 at the San Diego Bayfront Hotel while attending the California Democratic Party Convention, I had an inappropriate encounter with Gil Cisneros, who is running for House of Representatives for Congressional District 39. It was around the 11 pm hour and I had just left Rep. Maxine Waters’ party when I ran into Mr. Cisneros at the elevators. In my opinion, he was intoxicated. I told him how I was running for Assembly 55 and that I was going to hit him up for the maximum contribution for my campaign. He joked “why does everyone come to me for donations?” I responded by saying “well isn’t it obvious?” We chit chatted about Rep. Waters’ party while waiting for the elevator. Then out of the blue he asked me “Should we go back to your room?” I was shocked, but quickly excused it because he was intoxicated. I responded “I don’t think so Gil and I don’t think my two roommates would approve,” while I was laughing. He just smiled and the elevators door opened.

I wouldn’t have given it another thought, if it wasn’t for a phone call I had with him about a week later. I called him to ask for the donation. First he said “why should I? You didn’t vote for me.” He was talking about the pre-endorsement meeting before the convention where the delegates, like myself, get together to vote. I explained to him that a group of us were trying to get Jay Chen the CADEM endorsement in hopes of others to drop out of the crowded race and we were 2 votes shy and so there was no endorsement for CD39. I already knew it wouldn’t deter him or Andy Thorburn from dropping from the race. He then asked me “well what are you going to do for me?” I went into this whole spiel about my ground game hoping to impress him that I would be a very active candidate. Then he interrupted me and in a different tone and slowly said “no Melissa. I mean what are you going to do for me?”

Now this can be interpreted two ways. Either he wants me to be his spy or he wants me to have sex with him. After the encounter at the elevator in San Diego, I thought he wanted to have sex with me in exchange for a $4400 donation. Either way he wanted pay for play; a quick pro quo. I lost my breath for a second and responded “well Gil that’s not how this works.” In the end, he said that he needed to talk to his wife because he was already having problems with people saying he was buying the election and then the call ended. That was the last time I ever spoke to him, but not the last time I would see him.

On April 23rd, I saw him walk in at the Democratic Party of Orange County meeting a little before 7 pm. He looked my way and I immediately felt uncomfortable, so I ended up leaving.

I met Mr. Cisneros for the first time at the Tri-County Democratic Club’s Christmas luncheon in December. Before that I had received a couple of phone calls from him to lobby my vote at the pre-endorsement meeting but I sent them to voicemail. At that time I was getting dozens of calls for my vote as the elected Assembly 55 Delegate and Executive Board Representative to CADEM. Thomas Rivera, Gil’s Deputy Political Director came to my door after the 8 pm hour to also lobby me for my vote. He was the only one to do that and it was kind of creepy.

The first thing I noticed about Mr. Cisneros was he seemed socially awkward. He was constantly on his phone not conversing with the people around him. I’ve seen this exact same behavior in other local venues we’ve attended. I also interviewed him for a couple of minutes for a video I put together of Ed Royce’s retirement celebration at Cha Cha’s restaurant in Brea. He struck me as an outcast in high school who won the lottery and now he wants to hang out with the cool kids in Washington D.C. by showering money on them.

Before I decided to go forward with telling my side of the story, I decided to visit Gil Cisneros’ office in Placentia to let him know and see his response in person on April 30th, however he was not there. His friendly staff told me he was at a high school event and then he was headed to Philadelphia to participate in Michelle Obama’s America’s College Promise event. My first thought was I wished I had Michelle Obama’s cell phone number so I could let her know what happened to me. It also gave me solace in my resolve to come forward. I know there will be sceptics and people who will publiclaly flog me for coming forward, but I thought it was necessary to let people know what kind of man is Gil Cisneros, an unethical creepy man who is using inappropriate and bullying tactics to intimate others in order to win a seat in Congress.

After the DCCC managed to drag Cisneros over the finish line in the primary, Ryan's SuperPAC turned the whole thing into a major scandal-- 4 TV ads and the 6 mailings littering this post. Here's another one:

You can imagine what kind of intense pressure Fazli came under to withdraw her charges. She agreed to sit down for a meeting with Cisneros to discuss everything. He made her 4 promises in return for agreeing to say her charges were "a misunderstanding." Tuesday evening she told me that she never withdrew the facts of what had happened between her and Cisneros. She just wanted to have all the harassment from the Republicans and the Democrats and everyone else stop. So she moved out of the district and gave Cisneros the OK to call her charges a misunderstanding. He only kept one of his 4 promises to Fazli-- he fired his campaign manager, Orrin Evans.

This week, Fazli was shocked to read about Cisneros joining the coup plotters against Pelosi. And she contests his claim that he campaigned on that. “Like many of the constituents of CD-39," she told me, "I was shocked and awed by Gil Cisneros’ signing an anti-Pelosi letter. He did not campaign on this and most of his voters believed when he was talking about 'new leadership' that it meant flipping the district. They thought he was talking about himself, not the Honorable Nancy Pelosi. I would like to apologize to CD-39 for giving him a second chance."