A top aide to Oakland’s ousted ‘woke’ mayor Sheng Thao has been fired after shocking notes emerged where she appeared to refer to black people as ‘tokens’ to be used for political gain.
Leigh Hanson, who served as chief of staff in Thao’s controversial administration, was booted from her city role on Sunday after the bombshell document was exposed among thousands of pages seized by federal prosecutors.
The damning note – allegedly written during a March 2024 political strategy meeting – contained the explosive phrase ‘Use BP as tokens.’
It was written underneath a section labeled ‘Black supporters,’ apparently suggesting using black people as political props in the Democrat mayor’s fight against recall.
City Administrator Jestin Johnson announced the firing over the weekend in a statement.
‘Effective Sunday, Leigh Hanson is no longer an employee of the City of Oakland,’ Johnson said Sunday.
‘I thank Ms. Hanson for her service. Deputy Mayor Burt Jones will be serving as the Mayor’s Office chief of staff until further notice, and I thank him for stepping up to the role.’
When confronted about the offensive language by The Mercury News, Hanson claimed her notes were ‘taken out of context’ and were actually referring to a paid operative of the recall campaign.
‘These handwritten meeting notes record a group discussion that included proposed messaging points that the anti-recall campaign wanted to provide to potential surrogates,’ Hanson told outlet.
‘They are a specific reference to Seneca Scott, a paid African American political operative, who was hired by the wealthy white funders of the recall campaign to obscure the public’s understanding of the recall’s political origins,’ Hanson added.
‘It was Mayor Thao and her political team’s belief that this operative’s paid involvement constituted tokenization by the recall’s financier, and Oakland voters had a right to understand this connection regret that my short-hand note-taking has been taken out of context on social media and inadvertently harmed close friends, colleagues and members of my community who have been marginalized by our political system.’
In January, Oakland’s woke former Mayor Thao was criminally indicted in an FBI corruption probe just months after she was recalled from her position over the city’s spiraling crime.
Thao was at the center of an FBI investigation that centered on the city’s relations with the powerful Duong family, which operates its curbside recycling program, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The indictment indicates that grand jurors who have been hearing evidence at a federal court in San Francisco were persuaded by prosecutors that there was enough evidence to bring Thao to trial.
Others were also criminally charged in the indictment, a source familiar with the case told the Chronicle.
It came just over six months after FBI agents were seen raiding Thao’s home.