In more than a decade of campaigns for the California Legislature, San Francisco mayor and secretary of state, state Sen. Leland Yee raised in excess of $5 million. Yet it was a campaign debt only a fraction of that amount that federal officials allege pulled the veteran politician into a sprawling sting operation.
The 137-page FBI affidavit against Yee and more than 20 other defendants says the San Francisco Democrat’s focus on retiring a $70,000 campaign debt from his unsuccessful 2011 mayor’s race and raising money for his 2014 candidacy for secretary of state led him to accept bribes in return for official favors and arrange overseas weapons deals.