Bonta faces questions over campaign funds spent on lawyers

He says he was aiding a U.S. probe. Scrutiny comes as he weighs a run for governor.

- SEEMA MEHTA AND JESSICA GARRISON

ALLEN J. SCHABEN Los Angeles Times CALIFORNIA Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta spent nearly $500,000 in campaign funds last year on personal lawyers.

As California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta ponders a run for governor, he faces scrutiny for his ties to people central to a federal corruption investigation in Oakland and payments to private attorneys.

Bonta has not been accused of impropriety, but the questions come at an inopportune time for the Democrat, who says he is reassessing a gubernatorial bid after repeatedly dismissing a run earlier this year.

Bonta said the decisions by former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla not to seek the office altered the contours of the race.

"I had two horses in the governor's race already," Bonta said in an interview with The Times on Friday. "They decided not to get involved in the end. ... The race is fundamentally different today, right?"

Bonta said he has received significant encouragement to join the crowded gubernatorial field and that he expects to make a decision "definitely sooner rather than later." Political advisors to the 54-year-old Alameda politician have been reaching out to powerful Democrats across the state to gauge his possible support.

Historically, serving as California attorney general has been a launching pad to higher office or a top post in Washington.

Harris, elected to two terms as the state attorney general, was later elected to the U.S. Senate and then as vice president. Jerry Brown served in the post before voters elected him for a second go-around as governor in 2010. Earl Warren later became the chief justice of the Supreme Court.