The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the home of progressive Oakland Mayor
Sheng Thao
as she faces recall efforts over the city’s soaring crime.
FBI agents raided the home of Thao on Thursday morning in connection to a series of investigations that involve other homes that are part of a larger probe linked to a recycling company owned by a politically influential family.
It is unclear why the Democrat mayor’s home was raided. However, the raid comes just one day after a recall campaign to oust Thao from office received nearly twice the number of signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.
It’s official: left-wing Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao will face a recall election in November. Thao will face the historic poll amid mounting civic fury over her failure to stem the growing crime situation in Oakland. The Democrat lawmaker is the first mayor in the city’s history to be up for recall, after a campaign to oust her gained more than 40,000 signatures, the Daily Mail reports. Via Breitbart News.
The Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao (OUST) submitted its request just two weeks ago to boot Thao from office. By Wednesday, officials had already confirmed they had met the threshold of 25,000 voter signatures. In July, the City Council will vote on whether to place the recall effort on the ballot.
One of the organizers of the recall effort, Seneca Scott called Thao’s leadership a “national embarrassment.”
"I think that she's going to have to resign and then [there will be] an interim replacement. We may have four mayors in the span of six months,” Scott said. “However, with the news today that the FBI raided her home, I think it's going to be an easy campaign. This is going to go very, very deep. I think we're going to see a lot of things exposed in the City of Oakland."
Thao has received immense criticism for failed policies that have unprecedentedly driven crime rates in the progressive city. Critics blame her soft-on-crime policies for allowing criminals to wreak havoc and drive businesses away in the Bay City area.
Oakland has seen an overall increase in crime by 18 percent in 2023. Property crime is also up by 17 percent, with violent crime rising by 21 percent. Murders have increased from 78 in 2019 to 126 in 2023. During just the first four months of 2024, residential robberies skyrocketed by 118 percent in the same period last year.
“'In just a year, Thao's incompetence and dishonesty accelerated Oakland's decline, causing longstanding businesses to close and generational families to leave,” the Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao (OUST) campaign website wrote.
She recently fired former Oakland Police Department Chief LeRonne Armstrong after he denounced the “defund the police” movement.
In addition, Thao has also been accused of lying about calling a State of Emergency to deal with the sweeping crime exploiting the city.