State Attorney General Rob Bonta took a $16,000 contribution from a Southern California casino in his first month on the job. The problem? His office was investigating that casino for money laundering at the time, and the charges have since disappeared.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is currently busy with (and making a show of) his efforts to fight Trump’s mass deportations and combat price gouging by LA realtors in the wake of that area’s wildfires. And these may be indications that Bonta is burnishing his credentials to run for governor in 2026. So it will not be welcome news to his camp that the Chronicle has a report today that Bonta took a $16,200 campaign donation from a Southern California casino, at the same time his office was investigating that same casino for money laundering.

Oh, and the money laundering charges were conveniently dropped.

The casino in question is the Bicycle Casino in LA County’s Bell Gardens, which is actually more of a card room than a casino. The California Bureau of Gambling Control, a department that operates under Bonta’s jurisdiction, was investigating the casino for a very conspicuous $100 million in cash transactions from an unnamed Chinese national in a seven-month period in 2016. The IRS and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were also investigating.

The $16,200 donation from the card room came one month into Bonta’s tenure in office, after he was appointed by Gavin Newsom in 2021. But Bonta faced reelection to the position in 2022, and was therefore already seeking campaign donations.

The IRS and DHS ended up fining the card room $500,000, which is something, but hardly a severe penalty given the size of the suspicious transactions. Yet Bonta’s office dropped the investigation outright.

There is no evidence that the donation influenced Bonta’ decision to drop the case. But still, the optics…

“The issue here is the appearance —  the fact that you’re taking money from who you’re investigating is going to create concerns in voters’ minds,” veteran political consultant Jim Ross told the Chronicle. “This is the kind of thing that will dog you for the entire time of the campaign.”

The casino is no stranger to law enforcement troubles. It’s original financier Sam Gilbert was indicted on money laundering charges in 1987, and the federal government seized 30% of the casino in 1990 when investigators learned that Florida drug smugglers had financed that percentage of the place. And the feds raided the place again for money laundering in 2017, so there is some history here.    

The Bicycle Casino is under new ownership now, and is now called the Parkwest Bicycle Casino. It was purchased by a casino group called Parkwest Casinos, which has six casinos statewide. The sale to a new company may have played a role in why the charges were dropped.

But Bonta is starting to have some other issues with campaign contributions. Politico points out that he took a $72,500 contribution for Southern California Edison just days before dropping charges against that company for their possible culpability in the 2018 Woolsey Fire. And of course, Bonta took $150,000 in contributions from Andy and David Doung, who are currently under indictment for allegedly bribing Sheng Thao and her boyfriend. (Bonta’s camp has returned those contributions).

Those are bad looks for any candidate running for governor. But they are particularly bad looks when that candidate is currently the attorney general, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the state.

Related: AG Rob Bonta Finds Himself Possibly Dragged Into Whatever the Sheng Thao Raid Is All About [SFist]

Image: (Left) @AGRobBonta via Twitter, (Right) Parkwest Bicycle Casino via Yelp