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California ‘Anti-Poverty Activist’ And Dem Mega-Donor Pleads Guilty To Massive Carbon-Credit Scam
DailyWire.com ^ | Aug 22, 2025 | Luke Rosiak

Posted on 08/22/2025 3:08:56 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Top Dem donor and Gavin Newsom backer raised $300 million by touting "Corporate ESG Business" based on fake revenue.

Joe Sanberg, a top California Democrat activist who decried the corruption of big Wall Street banks and started a company marketed as the “cleaner” alternative, actually propped that company up through blatant fraud, he admitted Thursday.

Sanberg and other high-profile Democrats started the carbon-credit platform and online banking app Aspiration Partners Inc., promising to plant trees and not invest in polluting industries. Its motto was “clean rich is the new filthy rich.” It was once a star of the “environmental, social, and governance (ESG)” movement that blended corporate finance with leftist politics, and counted actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. as investors.

But it was instead a scheme as corrupt as any on Wall Street, with Sanberg concocting fake customers for his tree-planting services to try to dupe investors into a $2 billion valuation, the Department of Justice said. Sanberg faces up to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud, according to the Department of Justice.

Sanberg is a key player in California politics, a Gavin Newsom donor who personally spent $11 million backing a ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage to $18 an hour. Voters blocked the initiative by one percentage point in 2024. A 2019 Atlantic story headlined, “Joe Sanberg Dares Trump to Call Him a Socialist,” said “the multimillionaire investor says the Democrats’ progressive agenda is best for jobs and economic growth.”

But “this so-called ‘anti-poverty’ activist has admitted to being nothing more than a self-serving fraudster, by seeking to enrich himself by defrauding lenders and investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to Bill Essayli, the Acting U.S. Attorney of the Central District of California.

Aspiration was...

(Excerpt) Read more at dailywire.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: aspirationpartners; california; crime; democrat; democrats; democrattruth; esg; fraud; gavinnewsom; joesanberg; newsom; newsomfornia; samberg; sanberg; theft; workinghero
Uh huh.
1 posted on 08/22/2025 3:08:56 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wouldn’t a multimillionaire investor be the best anti-poverty activist by giving his multi-millions to poor people?


2 posted on 08/22/2025 3:13:41 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

A fraudster building a fraud business based on the fraud of the global warmageddon doomsday cult.


3 posted on 08/22/2025 3:14:37 PM PDT by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Well, his anti-poverty program certainly worked for him.

'Course, the only people who ever benefit from demonicRAT programs are the demonicRATS who run the programs.

4 posted on 08/22/2025 3:17:13 PM PDT by Texas Eagle ("Throw me to the wolves and I'll return leading the pack"- Donald J. Trump)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Algore’s Carbon-Credits were always a Scam


5 posted on 08/22/2025 3:22:01 PM PDT by butlerweave
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
...high-profile Democrats started the carbon-credit platform and online banking app...

That one little phrase screams "Run away!!"

6 posted on 08/22/2025 3:26:46 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. as investors.

Fools and their money are soon parted. Suckers.

7 posted on 08/22/2025 3:31:15 PM PDT by usurper (AI was born with a birth defect.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Speaking of carbon credit scams...


8 posted on 08/22/2025 3:33:10 PM PDT by Fresh Wind (Kamala defines herself in just 4 words..."Nothing comes to mind.")
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Everything about Democrats screams “Fraud!”


9 posted on 08/22/2025 3:33:12 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: usurper
Actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. as investors. Fools and their money are soon parted. Suckers.

Rush Limbaugh used to say that a conservative was just a Liberal who got mugged.

Looks like Leo and Robert got mugged.

10 posted on 08/22/2025 3:33:21 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of racism, anger, hate and violence.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wonder if this scam gets all the way back to Canada’s PM Mark Carney?


11 posted on 08/22/2025 3:33:30 PM PDT by existentially_kuffer
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
A Democrat accused of blatant fraud...

12 posted on 08/22/2025 3:33:38 PM PDT by Waverunner (Torah! Torah! Torah! my favorite IDF radio code.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

What’s this? A corrupt lib? How could such a thing be?


13 posted on 08/22/2025 4:05:23 PM PDT by irv (#NoSecretRulers )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I have long called it the selling of Green Indulgences by the Church of Gaia. That’s exactly what “carbon credits” are.


14 posted on 08/22/2025 4:09:45 PM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: irv
What’s this? A corrupt lib? How could such a thing be?

It happens occasionally, doesn’t it? /S

15 posted on 08/22/2025 4:11:49 PM PDT by Mark17 (Retired USAF air traffic controller. Father of USAF ISR pilot. We are a family of aviators. )
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To: BenLurkin

California is awash with corruption with each gambit used to rip off the public treasury. They turned the homeless problem into a money making scam. The Train to nowhere made Billions for a select few. All things they do must be suspect.


16 posted on 08/22/2025 4:17:39 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (. War is Hell, War IS a Crime.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I dare call him a jailbird.


17 posted on 08/22/2025 4:55:40 PM PDT by Noumenon (Duty is as heavy as a mountain; death is as light as a feather. KTF)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

He is associated with another group as well:

SC group spreads word about earned income tax credit
Morning News Sunday (Florence SC) ^ | March 24, 2019 p. 1A | Matthew Christian
Posted on 3/24/2019, 10:24:14 PM by Steve Schulin

FLORENCE, S.C. – A new organization in South Carolina has made a mission out of making sure that those who are eligible take advantage of the earned income tax credit on their 2019 federal and state taxes.

Working Hero South Carolina is a statewide campaign led Rania Jamison. The organization is an offshoot of a California-based organization founded by Joe Sanberg that has helped 2 million people receive more than $4 billion in state and federal taxes.

“Working Hero Action was founded in California by a rags-to-riches guy named Joe Sanberg,” said Jamison, the state director of Working Hero South Carolina. “He has become a millionaire, but he has decided to invest money into working to end poverty. He believes that the best way to do that is to elevate the earned income tax credit.”...


18 posted on 08/22/2025 6:36:56 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustmilents offered here free of charge)
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To: All

joe Sanberg_

19 posted on 08/22/2025 7:31:55 PM PDT by Liz (May you be in Heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead (Irish blessing))
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