Barbara Lee’s campaign to be mayor of Oakland doesn't need its first scandal, so she returned a $5,000 donation from the now-indicted Sheng Thao donors, but those same scandal-tainted donors have actually given her campaigns $66,250 over the last 26 years.

Once the seven-month wait for the indictment of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao finally ended in mid-January, and we had the indictment to review, we found that the whole scandal is alleged to be over bribes from executives at Cal Waste Solutions, who handle curbside recycling collection in Oakland.

Those executives are the company’s founder David Doung and his son Andy Duong, who are also both under indictment in the Thao case, though we should emphasize that the Duongs are not accused of bribing any politicians ever except Sheng Thao (and her boyfriend).

But the Duongs sure have spread their political contributions to politicians all over the political spectrum: from both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris for president, to Gavin Newsom for governor, and even to Ted Cruz for US senator.

And now that Sheng Thao is recalled, former US Representative Barbara Lee is running for Thao’s old seat as mayor. And KQED reports that Lee’s campaign is returning a $5,000 campaign contribution from the Duongs, made in 2023 to her failed Senate campaign for the late Dianne Feinstein’s old seat. Lee finished that race in a distant fourth place behind Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey.

“Barbara Lee has zero tolerance for any pay to play or special interest influence,” Lee’s mayoral campaign spokesperson Bilen Mesfin told KQED last Thursday. And on Friday, Mesfin added, “As for the $5,000 donated to her senate campaign in 2023, Barbara Lee is donating that to Meals on Wheels.”

Yeah, but. While the Duongs gave $5,000 to Lee’s Senate campaign in 2023, KQED points out they have given Lee’s various Congressional campaigns a total of $66,250 since 1998, when she first ran for, and won, what was then Ron Dellums’s seat in the House of Representatives. (And in a fun bit of irony, Thao’s criminal trial and hearings are taking place at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and Courthouse in Oakland.)

Lee’s campaign announcement came just one day after her mayoral opponent Loren Taylor made a specific call for all East Bay politicians to donate their Duong donations to — guess who? — Meals on Wheels. I would wager that someone in Lee’s campaign saw the above tweet, as the campaign then took that exact course of action.

Did mayoral candidate Loren Taylor score any political points here? We don’t mind pointing out that Taylor is seen in the above Instagram post with the now-indicted Andy Duong. When KQED called him out on this, he told that outlet, “So there was a lot of photos being taken with a lot of people that I didn’t know.” And he added, “As far as I know, I have never received any financial contributions from the Duong family.”

Fair enough, but there might be some wiggle room in that statement. And there might be more trouble for other East Bay politicians, as the US Department of Justice said on the day they indicted Thao that their investigation was “still ongoing,” and could yield more indictments.

Related: No Time to Retire, Barbara Lee Makes Her Bid For Oakland Mayor Official [SFist]

Image: WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 16: Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) arrives for a Congressional Progressive Caucus news conference at the U.S. Capitol on May 16, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled their agenda for policies they plan to push next year if Democrats win the 2024 election including a higher minimum wage, strengthened antitrust laws and new federal benefits for seniors on Social Security and parents raising kids. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)