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Dem House hopeful tied to district’s secret sex-abuse settlements after touting transparency record
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A California Democrat running for Congress in a newly redrawn Central Valley congressional district has campaigned on bringing transparency to his local school board — but during his tenure, the board he served on reportedly settled multiple sex-abuse cases behind closed doors.
Randy Villegas, running to represent California’s newly redrawn 22nd Congressional District in the U.S. House following passage of the state’s Proposition 50, is a college professor and most recently a school board member who ran on bringing transparency to the Visalia Unified School District (VUSD) in Central California.
Meanwhile, on the website set up for his congressional candidacy, Villegas says he is running to «bring accountable, people-first leadership to Washington.» But, during his tenure as a Visalia Unified School District school board member, the district settled five confidential sex-abuse cases totaling nearly $14.4 million that included provisions to hide information from the public, according to data and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
In at least one of the settlements authorized unanimously by the board, Villegas was present, Fox News Digital could confirm. In that settlement agreement, Visalia Unified School District paid out $3 million following sexual assault allegations against a kindergarten teacher from six former students, and it contained explicit provisions to keep the public in the dark.
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It marked the fifth «secret settlement» in three years at Visalia Unified School District, according to the LA Times, all of which came during Villegas’s tenure on the board that remains ongoing. Fox News Digital could not independently confirm if Villegas was present for the other four votes.
Randy Villegas is running to represent California’s newly redrawn 22nd Congressional District in the U.S. House following passage of the state’s Proposition 50. (Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Connor Treacy)
Fox News Digital reached out to Villegas’s campaign and Visalia Unified School District for comment, including questions about Villegas’s past transparency message, the board’s approval of confidential sex-abuse settlements and whether the public deserved more disclosure, but did not hear back in time for publication.
«California Democrats have turned this race into a nightmare for parents,» press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Christian Martinez, told Fox News Digital. «Socialist Randy Villegas quietly approved massive confidential settlements tied to the sexual abuse of children, while Progressive Jasmeet Bains is backed by activists who pushed to weaken sex offender laws and strip parents of their rights proving both are willing to sacrifice kids’ safety to protect their far-left allies and agenda.»
Visalia Unified School District board minutes from March 2025, reviewed by Fox News Digital, state Villegas was present when the board returned from closed session and unanimously approved a settlement agreement only identified as «existing litigation» titled «Tulare County Superior Court, Case No. VCU 294247.»
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When Fox News Digital searched the case number on the Tulare County, California, Superior Court’s case search portal, there were six defendants matching the March 2025 settlement documents shared by the LA Times.
The case involved allegations of sexual abuse and assault from six former students against an adult male kindergarten teacher, with incidents occurring decades prior in both a classroom and the restroom, according to a 2022 complaint shared by the L.A. Times that detailed the six accusers’ allegations.
The teacher, between the years 1969 and 1971, allegedly «used his kindergarten classroom and position of trust and authority to egregiously assault the youngest and most tender of students,» the complaint says, alleging the teacher «upended the kindergarten classroom into his personal playing field where (the teacher) preyed on and repeatedly assaulted multiple female students.»
A school bus takes students home in the small Tulare County, California, town in 2023. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The resulting March 2025 confidential settlement agreement, approved by the board with Villegas present, included provisions where parties agreed to state only «the matter has been resolved» and promised to provide no «further elaboration, discussion, or disclosure» to third-parties about it.
The settlements were reached to resolve claims and did not constitute any admission of wrongdoing.
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The settlement agreement also acknowledged that the district may be required to disclose settlement terms under the California Public Records Act, but barred former students involved in the settlement from «directly or indirectly» encouraging anyone to file a public-records request about the settlements, or making one themselves.
At least three of the other settlement agreements from Villegas’ tenure on the Visalia Unified School District board and shared by the LA Times, which spanned abuse dating back decades, included the same secrecy provisions, according to a review by Fox News Digital.
The fifth, an $8 million settlement approved during Villegas’s tenure, according to the LA Times’ reporting but unverified independently by Fox News Digital, included allegations from a former student who said, when they were 15, they were allegedly groomed and sexually assaulted by a school staff member in their mid-30s. The alleged abuse, according to a copy of the complaint shared by the LA Times, took place during the 2022–2023 school year.
The plaintiff accused Visalia Unified School District of negligent hiring, supervision and retention, in the complaint, alleging the district knew or should have known the defendant was unfit to work there.
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The plaintiff’s attorney told news outlet ABC 30 that the defendant in the case had been released from the same school a decade earlier over serious misconduct before being brought back in 2022. That lawyer later represented another student with allegations against the same staff member, ABC30 reported, adding the defendant was facing 11 felony counts for misconduct during the 2022–2023 school year.
The settlement in that case was reached one month before a civil trial was expected to start, The Fresno Bee added in coverage from 2025.
Lopez acknowledged Democrats are currently in «the hot seat» for California. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
Villegas, while running to retain his vacancy appointment to the school board in 2022, prior to any of the aforementioned settlements, bragged that during his temporary appointment he «pushed for transparency, supporting a policy to grant the public access to meeting recordings,» in a candidate profile for the Visalia Times Delta. In the bio on his congressional candidacy website, Villegas echoes a similar message.
«Randy’s running to fight for working families, protect our democracy, and bring accountable, people-first leadership to Washington,» Villegas’ website says. «He’s challenging Republican David Valadao, who has consistently sided with corporate interests over the needs of our communities.»
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Villegas, who teaches political science at the College of the Sequoias since getting his doctorate from the University of California at Santa Cruz, is running in California’s June 2 top-two primary against incumbent Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democratic Assemblywoman Bains.
Fox News Digital reached out to campaigns for Valadao and Bains for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.
Villegas’ campaign has drawn support from the progressive wing of the party, most notably Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who endorsed Villegas in November 2025, Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers alongside Cesar Chavez, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, whose co-chairs, Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., praised Villegas as a candidate who would bring Central Valley voices to Congress. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., also has endorsed Villegas, according to local California reporting.
The 22nd Congressional District was previously held by Republicans Devin Nunes and Connie Conway.
congress, sex crimes, local, investigations, controversies education
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Democrats’ midterm push clouded by infighting over party keeping 2024 autopsy under wraps
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Democrats keep winning at the ballot box as the party works to win back congressional majorities in this year’s midterm elections.
But despite a slew of electoral victories and overperformances in the more than 15 months since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the party’s image remains well underwater in public opinion polling and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) finds itself badly trailing the rival Republican National Committee in fundraising, a crucial gauge of a party’s strength.
To make matters worse, the DNC is facing continued calls to release its internal autopsy of the party’s sweeping setbacks in the 2024 election, when Democrats lost the presidency and Senate majority and fell short in winning back control of the House.
Among those calling on the DNC to make public their report on what went wrong for the Democrats in 2024 is former Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee two years ago.
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Former Vice President Kamala Harris, center, speaks with patrons during a stop at Crave restaurant ahead of a South Carolina Democratic Party fundraiser on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Greenville, S.C (Meg Kinnard/AP Photo)
Harris, who is mulling making another White House bid in 2028, recently told donors she believes the DNC should make the autopsy public. The news was first reported by NBC News and confirmed by Fox News Digital.
A source with knowledge said that Harris had not discussed the autopsy with DNC Chair Ken Martin, and that the former vice president did not know in advance about Martin’s decision in December to keep the 2024 election postmortem under wraps.
Martin ordered the report soon after he was elected DNC chair early last year.
Democratic Party officials interviewed over 300 Democrats from all 50 states for the report, which Martin promised would examine the party’s mistakes in 2024 and offer a roadmap to victory going forward.
There was controversy surrounding the report as it was being compiled, after reports last summer said the autopsy would skip analyzing whether then-President Joe Biden should have run for re-election in 2024 and would pass on judging key decisions made by Harris and her team, after she replaced Biden as the party’s nominee with just over three months to go until the 2024 election.
Throughout the process, Martin repeatedly pushed back on calling the report an «autopsy,» since he noted that the Democratic Party wasn’t dead. He instead labeled the report an «after-action review.»
But in December, weeks after Democrats scored major victories in the 2025 off-year elections, the party announced it would not be releasing the report.
Martin, in a statement at the time, said releasing the report would be «a distraction» from the party’s «core mission» to win back congressional majorities in the midterms.
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Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin addresses party members at the DNC summer meeting in Minneapolis, Minn., on Aug. 25, 2025. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News)
In explaining his decision, Martin wrote, «We completed a comprehensive review of what happened in 2024 and are already putting our learnings into motion. And we’re winning again — even in places that haven’t gone blue in decades. In our conversations with stakeholders from across the Democratic ecosystem, we are aligned on what’s important, and that’s learning from the past and winning the future.»
«Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission,» he emphasized.
But the DNC chair’s decision was criticized not only by Republicans but also by fellow Democrats.
«They are spiking an autopsy of the election that gave us Trump 2.0. If party leaders won’t take the steps required to rebuild ourselves into a winning coalition, we will take it into our own hands,» former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg warned in a social media post at the time.
Hogg, a gun-control crusader who was elected a DNC vice chair as Martin won election as chair, stepped down from his position last summer after upsetting party leaders for his efforts backing primary challenges against what he called «asleep at the wheel» older, longtime incumbents in safe, blue districts.
Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior advisor to then-President Barack Obama and a co-host of the popular progressive podcast «Pod Save America,» also took to social media to criticize the move.
«This is a very bad decision that reeks of the caution and complacency that brought us to this moment,» Pfeiffer wrote.
His podcast co-host and fellow Obama alum Jon Favreau called the DNC flip-flop «unreal» and «baffling.»
«The DNC’s actual position is that if the public knew more about what Democrats got wrong in the last election, it would hurt the party’s chances in the next election,» Favreau wrote on X. «How does this rebuild trust between the party insiders and grassroots activists and organizers?»
Martin last month made an appearance on «Pod Save America» to push back against the criticism.
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«We’ve been releasing that,» Martin said when asked if the DNC would release a summary of the report. «The reality is we’re not hiding the ball on this. We have been sharing those things out. There’s no smoking gun here.»
Martin noted that «we’ve been providing briefings,» as he pointed to data from the report the DNC shared with Democratic stakeholders.
Harris isn’t the only potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender calling on the DNC to make the full report public.
«Yeah, release the autopsy,» Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said this past weekend in an interview on NBC’s «Meet the Press» on Sunday. «They should do that,» the senator added as he pointed to the DNC.
But Booker, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination won by Biden and who is mulling another run in 2028, said it’s imperative his party doesn’t dwell on the past.
Rotimi Adeoye, a former Democratic operative who is serving as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, argued in a social media post that «the mistake the DNC made is they could’ve released the report earlier in the spring, whatever’s in it, you get two weeks of bad publicity, then Trump does something stupid and everyone forgets.»
«Now it feels like something’s being hidden, which makes it way more salacious,» he claimed.
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A person familiar with the DNC’s strategy told Fox News Digital because of all the attention on the autopsy, «they are going to be forced to release something.»
The person, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, said the ongoing storyline is a distraction for the DNC with the clock ticking towards the midterms, adding «it’s just not helping to be talking about this.»
The DNC pointed to Martin’s previous comments when contacted by Fox News Digital.
democrats elections, midterm elections, joe biden, fund raising, democratic party, kamala harris, elections
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Crudo informe israelí sobre la violencia sexual durante y después del ataque de Hamas: vejaciones entre parientes, transmisiones en vivo y violaciones grupales
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President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a moment when both Washington and Beijing are trying to stabilize one of the world’s most consequential rivalries without giving ground on deeper strategic disputes.
The two-day visit marks Trump’s first trip to China since 2017 and comes amid mounting tensions over trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan and the fallout from the war with Iran. While the White House is framing the summit as an opportunity for new economic agreements and «rebalancing» the U.S.–China relationship, analysts say Beijing’s priorities are far broader and more long-term.
«Trump arrives seeking headline deals and visible momentum ahead of the midterms,» wrote Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. «Xi is playing a longer game, focused on strategic patience rather than substantive compromise.»
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President Donald Trump is expected to press Chinese President Xi Jinping on China’s economic and strategic support for both Iran and Russia, including oil revenue, dual-use components and potential weapons transfers, according to senior administration officials. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Topics expected to be discussed during the summit include trade, aerospace, agriculture and energy agreements, and the creation of a U.S.–China Board of Trade and Board of Investment, according to the White House.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump’s goal is to «deliver more good deals on behalf of our country» while safeguarding U.S. national security.
Trump participated in a welcome ceremony and bilateral meeting with Xi Thursday morning local time in Beijing, followed by a tour of the Temple of Heaven alongside the Chinese leader and a state banquet later.
Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said Beijing views the summit as an opportunity to stabilize ties between the world’s two largest economies.
«Heads-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable role in providing strategic guidance for China–U.S. relations,» Liu said in a statement to Fox News Digital. «We welcome President Trump’s state visit to China. China stands ready to work with the U.S. to expand cooperation and manage differences in the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit, and provide more stability and certainty for a transforming and volatile world.»
For Xi, analysts say, the top priority likely is avoiding further escalation with Washington while buying time for China’s slowing economy, as it continues to struggle with weak domestic demand, deflationary pressure and industrial overcapacity.
A recent report by the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that Beijing is doubling down on state-led industrial policy despite mounting structural weaknesses in the Chinese economy.
The commission said China is increasingly operating a «two-speed» economy, where much of the broader economy stagnates while sectors prioritized by the Chinese Communist Party receive massive state support and continue expanding beyond market demand.
The report also warned of a new «China Shock 2.0,» arguing Beijing’s excess industrial capacity and record trade surplus are disrupting global markets while increasing foreign dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains in sectors ranging from batteries and pharmaceuticals to semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
«Chinese policy seeks simultaneously to reduce China’s reliance on foreign technology while increasing the world’s dependence on China,» the commission noted in its findings.
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President Trump was greeted by a formal state welcome when he touched down in Beijing ahead of high-stakes talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
At the same time, Xi is entering the talks with leverage stemming from the ongoing Iran crisis and global energy disruptions.
Trump has faced growing domestic pressure over rising energy prices tied to instability in the Middle East and shipping threats near the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing, meanwhile, remains one of Iran’s largest oil customers and maintains political ties with Tehran.
Susan Thornton, former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during Trump’s first term, said during a recent Stanford University Asia-Pacific Research Center interview that expectations for major breakthroughs should remain low despite the summit’s symbolism.
«The primary value lies in the act of meeting itself,» Thornton said.
She suggested Beijing may see a strategic advantage in America’s renewed focus on the Middle East. While China has made nominal peace proposals, it has not stepped up as a mediator.
«It seems like they are kind of hanging back and waiting to see what will happen,» Thornton said, arguing that from Beijing’s perspective, a U.S. entanglement in the Middle East may serve as a useful distraction, diverting Washington’s attention and pressure away from China.
One area where the two sides could announce tangible progress is agriculture.
The White House is pushing Beijing for expanded purchases of U.S. farm products ahead of the summit, according to a Reuters report published Tuesday, particularly soybeans and grains.
But traders and analysts told Reuters that China’s appetite for major new soybean commitments may be limited due to weak domestic demand and cheaper alternatives from Brazil. Instead, markets are watching for potential agreements involving corn, sorghum, wheat, beef and poultry, sectors viewed as less politically contentious in the broader U.S.–China relationship.
More than a dozen U.S. business executives, including leaders from agricultural giant Cargill, are accompanying Trump during the visit.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan welcome U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump at the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, in Beijing, Nov. 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi via Getty Images)
Despite the focus on trade and geopolitical tensions, survivors of China’s religious persecution are urging the administration not to sideline Beijing’s crackdown on religious groups and dissidents.
Ahead of the summit, Trump publicly pledged to raise the case of imprisoned Chinese pastor Ezra Jin following advocacy efforts by his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, who has accused Beijing of persecuting Christians.
Former U.S. officials told Fox News Digital they are skeptical human rights concerns will play a central role during a summit primarily focused on lowering tensions and stabilizing economic ties between the two powers.
Taiwan and technology restrictions are also expected to loom over the talks. Beijing continues to oppose U.S. arms sales and support for Taiwan, while Washington has tightened export controls targeting China’s advanced semiconductor and AI sectors.
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For President Donald Trump, the summit offers an opportunity to showcase economic wins and diplomatic engagement ahead of the 2026 midterms (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)
Still, despite the escalating rivalry, neither Washington nor Beijing appears eager for a direct confrontation.
For Trump, the summit offers an opportunity to showcase economic wins and diplomatic engagement ahead of the 2026 midterms.
For Xi, analysts say, the goal is far more measured: preserve stability, avoid confrontation and continue positioning China for a prolonged strategic competition with the United States.
china, donald trump, taiwan, xi jinping, trade
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