I am suing my state of CA. Here is some advice on how to navigate the bureaucracy that is required before a lawsuit can be filed (from my FAQ page: https://gwsandiego.net/blog/?page_id=241)

Q: Do you have any advice on how to jump in and fight government corruption? A: The first thing to do is to pick an issue that you think you could have the most impact on. There are a lot of corruption issues that people see and think “Issue Y is really messed up, but X is way worse.” Yes, X may be worse, but if there are already a lot of people working on X, you will have far more impact by working on Y instead.

You will usually have the most impact if you choose a local issue, something within your own city/county/state. Local issues take less people pushing to make effective changes. And, the more you can get in the officials’ faces, the harder it is to blow you off.

The secret to success is to wrest control of the narrative away from the Agency you are fighting. He who controls the narrative wins the war. Since the Agency is corrupt, they are necessarily hiding that corruption via a false narrative that is delivered in a confident and authoritative tone. You have to find the lies and expose them in an equally confident and authoritative tone, putting them on the defensive (example 1 is my Appellant’s Second Response Brief where I call out the FTB lawyer made improper redactions, improper omissions and false statements in the OTA case; example 2 is my Superior Court Complaint).

They will try many maneuvers to wrest control of the narrative back, and put you on the defensive (examples: 1 is the letter from the Bar Association saying FTB’s lawyer did nothing wrong in the OTA case; example 2 is the FTB’s Answer where they made a blanket statement denying wrongdoing and citing random laws to try to sound legit; ).

You can’t let them. You have to stick confidently to your narrative of truth (example 1, I filed a CA Supreme Court Accusation in response to Bar’s claims that FTB’s lawyer did nothing wrong. Example 2 is the request that I filed with the judge to throw out their Answer because it was bogus).

As you confront the Agency’s false narratives, send regular updates to everyone up the food chain. I copied the governor, FTB’s board of directors, several other state legislators, the FBI and the CA Auditor’s office on many pieces of correspondence in which I called FTB out on their very strange accounting and their unethical business practices. I included a cover letter explaining exactly why these were suspicious/incriminating, and I made sure the cover letter also filled in any gaps in info that may not have been self-evident. The legislators need things spelled out for them clearly and concisely to understand. FTB continually tried to ignore me altogether, but they couldn’t because the Governor, Controller, and my Assemblyman made them respond to me.

Navigating government bureaucracy is MADDENING, and that is by design. They want you to get frustrated, give up and go away. It will take you a while to figure out exactly how the system works. Ask a lot of people in the assorted government offices involved in the corruption/cover up, because each person will give you slightly different info and you won’t know the full picture without talking to several people/departments/agencies. Everyone will forget a piece of info, or not think its relevant, or whatever. Ask for the legal basis for all of these policies and practices.

Another great place to get information from is the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) for national government agencies. Most states have their own version of FOIA, as well. California’s version is called the Public Records Act (PRA). When you make a request under one of these acts, they have to disclose all kinds of information that they normally try to hide. There is usually a person/department at each agency that handles the requests. You will have to find the right person/department and contact them direct. Also pay close attention to what they don’t disclose.

Once you understand how the system works, you can push for the appropriate changes. You have to be tenacious. They have a vested interest in keeping things status quo, and they will try all sorts of narrative-control tactics to get you to shut up and go away. Do not back down. Keep pushing back.

They will try to intimidate you. They will try to imply you are somehow breaking the law by calling out their crimes. They will imply that you will face nasty consequences for speaking out. You’ll likely be harassed, as well.

They will attempt to smear your credibility; painting you as a raving lunatic who doesn’t know what you are talking about. To give you one example, FTB sent a letter that they copied to State Controller Yee in which they claimed I had been assessed fees because I “never responded to notices.” The wording of their letter made me sound like a lazy dirt bag. In my OTA appeal, I documented that I responded to notices 71 times. This attempted smear actually bit FTB in the butt, because I was later able to publicly call them out on their “strange internal vocabulary” that is used to deceive regulators.

Another tactic to control the narrative is to misquote laws, or take laws out of context, or cherry pick words to make it appear that the laws say something different than they actually do. Make sure you get online to a law library and read the text of each law they cite you in full. Regular online browser searches usually don’t pull up the sub-laws underneath the main law, and those sub-laws are often favorable for you. I know anyone can use the online San Diego law library: https://sandiegolawlibrary.org

One of the things I have learned is that the agencies will not volunteer any information, but they will usually not lie to you if you ask them a direct question. They will, however, use deceptive wording to deliberately mislead you. So ask a lot of questions, and re-ask them using slightly different wording. The different nuance in the phrasing may be the difference between what they have to disclose and not. Parse their answers carefully to make sure they actually answered the questions instead of giving you a pile of meaningless fluff. If they refuse to answer a question, then you know you have hit the right question, and will have to go up the food chain to get an answer.

In my case, I found out that I had a right to a copy of all the internal notes and records that FTB had on me. I asked several times about getting my hands on my information, and at first they refused to answer the questions. After a few complaint letters to the governor, board of directors, et all, they finally admitted I could have the internal notes and records. There were many, many smoking guns in those notes. I would have never been able to get so far in my fight without those notes… which is why they tried so hard to hide them from me.

And remember that I did say usually. In my case, I started complaining about FTB’s screwed up policies back in 2016 and 2017. Everyone at the FTB told me that only legislators could change the policies and procedures at the FTB. In late 2017, a tax lobbyist told me that there is something called The Annual Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights Meeting that I could attend to make these policy/procedure change requests directly to the FTB’s Board of Directors. I called out FTB’s lying to hide these meetings in my 2017 and 2018 Requests, and in 2019, they did finally update their website to disclose this right to the public. So I guess the point I am circling back to here is that you need to talk to lots of people to really understand the bureaucracy.

Remember that other government agencies and legislators will participate in the cover-up. They have a vested interest in keeping the system status quo, so they will do whatever they can to protect “the system.” Governors Brown and Newsom, Controller Yee, Department of Finance Directors Michael Cohen and Keely Bosner, assorted leadership at GovOps (that place has a lot of turnover), the Office of Tax Appeals, the CA Bar Association, the CA Attorney General’s office, and many elected officials have been actively covering up the crimes that I have exposed. But I am undaunted. Every time I am rebuffed by a venue, I expose they are also exploitative criminals who need to be ousted when we finally re-org the system. I take each “go away” as a success in finding the corrupt who need to be weeded out.

I hope this is enough for you to get started! At this point, it is clear that the government is trying to exploit the pandemic to shore up complete power, so we all need to jump in and fight. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have much time, every bit helps. It is perfectly fine to pick an area of minor corruption. Minor crime is the base of the wall in which the higher crimes are built upon. Every bit of corruption needs to be eliminated, and it’ll probably be easier to see success in halting the minor crimes… and as you take down the minor criminals, chances are you’ll find connections with them to bigger crimes.