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Steve Hilton is demanding federal officials turn over records — including a former federal contractor’s laptop — that he claims could expose what Xavier Becerra knew about migrant children being handed to traffickers during the Biden administration.
The Republican candidate for governor is targeting his Democratic rival’s tenure as Health and Human Services secretary, alleging Becerra and the Biden White House knew children were being delivered to sex and labor traffickers.
In a letter sent Monday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Hilton pointed to a former federal contractor’s laptop that he said had been given to congressional investigators.
The letter identified the whistleblower as Tarek “Joey” Kadourah, who supervised a transportation team for federal contractor MVM that moved migrant children from government facilities to sponsors.
“If the testimony of whistleblowers is accurate, and the contents of the laptop are as reported, the role of Xavier Becerra and the Biden White House in the trafficking of thousands of migrant children represents one of the biggest and most shocking scandals in U.S. government history,” Hilton wrote.
Hilton’s campaign reported $406.10 in car service and meal expenses for Kadourah’s travel for interviews in August, according to a campaign finance disclosure.
In a recent interview with journalist Lara Logan, Kadourah alleged agents reported children crying, girls trying to flee during transportation stops and adults with apparent gang tattoos collecting children.
“Some of them even looked like gang members,” Kadourah said, citing what he described as “MS-13 tattoos, Mexican mafia tattoos.”
He recalled a military veteran and former corrections officer raising concerns after two men with prison tattoos arrived to collect a child. Kadourah said he repeatedly alerted his supervisor, only to be told: “Hey, they’ve been vetted. Everything’s OK. Keep your mouth shut. Just keep doing the job.”
Hilton wrote that Kadourah’s laptop “apparently contains evidence” that Becerra and the Biden White House knew children were being transported by the government directly to traffickers.
The letter does not include specifics about the laptop’s records or establish that investigators substantiated Kadourah’s allegations.
Hilton also wrote that his campaign had been informed that Homeland Security Investigations was examining the matter, “including specifically the role of Xavier Becerra.” The letter offers no independent confirmation of that assertion.
“It’s sad to watch Trump’s chosen candidate Steve Hilton be consumed by his own desperation,” Jonathan Underland, a spokesperson for the Becerra campaign, told The Post in a statement.
“Nothing is working, so he’s inventing Q-Anon brainrot to distract from a weak policy platform that would make billionaires richer and hurt working families.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Citing border czar Tom Homan, Hilton said approximately 140,000 children remain unaccounted for. The letter does not establish how many were confirmed missing rather than unreachable through government follow-up efforts. Hilton also wrote that some children placed in dangerous situations had died.
John Fabbricatore, a senior adviser for the Trump administration at HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, told The Post in August that investigators had found more than 40 migrant children dead, though some had since become adults: “We found kids in sex trafficking. We found kids who were murdered, kids who were in slave labor.”
Hilton’s letter follows additional reporting by The Post in which a former Biden administration official accused Becerra of referring to migrant children as “little Juanitos and Juanitas” while leading HHS. Becerra denied using that language about migrant kids, and Underland defended Becerra’s leadership of HHS by noting, “Jealousy breeds contempt.”
Hilton urged Mullin to work with current HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and congressional investigators to establish what Becerra knew and how he responded to warnings from staff and contractors.
“Becerra is now asking the people of California to make him their governor,” Hilton wrote. “They deserve to know the truth about what he did before they cast their votes.”