SF residents still don’t know what happened on that phone call where Mayor Lurie talked Donald Trump out of sending federal troops into SF, and a panel of SF’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force says Lurie is breaking the law.
It is almost certainly the greatest political win of SF Mayor Daniel Lurie’s nearly one year in office that he — with an assist from a couple billionaires — somehow talked Donald Trump out of sending federal troops to SF in a mysterious phone call the night of October 22. Federal agents were already at our doorstep, likely with National Guard troops not far behind, and whatever Lurie said, he certainly saved San Francisco plus also Oakland and Alameda County from their own ICE and Border Patrol invasions as well.
Though it has been something of a mini-controversy that Lurie has refused to share any details of that call, even though members of the public have filed public records requests for the call’s details. And that mini-controversy is continuing to chug along, as Mission Local reports that a three-member panel of the city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force ruled on Tuesday that Lurie is illegally shielding those records by refusing to honor the public records requests.
This ruling was just from a three-member subcommittee of the task force, and the full Sunshine Ordinance Task Force has not yet voted on the matter. But that three-member committee ruled unanimously that Lurie’s office is maintaining “inappropriate standards for withholding privileged documents,” and urged Lurie’s office to “produce all non-privileged documents” related to that phone call.
Lurie’s office continues to refuse, citing “attorney-client privilege.” That seems laughable on its face, as neither Lurie nor Trump is an attorney.
“I’ve dealt with some pretty bogus assertions of attorney-client privilege in my long career,” public-records attorney Karl Olson, told Mission Local. “I just really don’t see any basis for claiming attorney-client privilege.”
The public records request was filed by SF resident and community organizer Hazel Williams, who admittedly, has a point that legally, the records request should have been filled.
“The request is for records between the Mayor and the President. That relationship does not constitute an attorney-client relationship,” Williams wrote in her request, after the initial refusal. “The president is not the mayor’s attorney. The mayor is not the president’s attorney.”
We should note that probably nothing will ever come of any of this. The matter may get a further vote of the full Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, and it may even go on to a hearing at the SF Ethics Commission. The worst they would do is censure Lurie, which accomplishes nothing, or levy him a fine, which would be the equivalent of pennies to a fabulously wealthy inheritee like Daniel Lurie.
After all, as Mission Local points out, London Breed was busted for deleting official texts about city business, and she faced no consequences whatsoever for any of that.
Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 11: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during a press conference at the Maria X Martinez Health Resource Center on February 11, 2025 in San Francisco, California. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced the appointment of healthcare leader Daniel Tsai as the new director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
