The FBI has not yet said why it searched the home of David and Andy Duong, owners of Oakland curbside recycler California Waste Solutions, but the investigation may be politically related.
Duong and his son Andy have been under investigation by state and city political regulators since 2019 for alleged money laundering. The California Fair Political Practices Commission and the Oakland Public Ethics Commission allege that the Duong family used “dummy donors” to conceal the true source of the funds and illegally diverted large amounts of money to local politicians’ campaign coffers.
The FPPC and the Oakland Public Ethics Commission have yet to complete their investigations, so it’s unclear what they will find or whether they will formally charge the Duong family with violations.
David Duong and his family have donated large sums to federal and state candidates for decades. In California, the Duongs have donated generously to Democrats. Nationally, the family’s political funds are more balanced, with Republicans and candidates like Donald Trump receiving big checks just as much as Democrats.
David Duong has donated more than $2 million to federal candidates
In 1988, David Duong wrote a $500 check to California’s Lieutenant Governor Leo T. McCarthy, who was running for the U.S. Senate. It was Duong’s first donation to a federal candidate. Over the next decade, Duong, who ran a San Francisco recycling company called CoGiDo, gave smaller amounts to the campaign committees of Rep. Ron Dellums, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.
By the late 2000s, Duong’s contributions to candidates for federal office had grown to tens of thousands of dollars annually. Democrats were the biggest beneficiaries. Duong gave $104,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, which the Center for Public Integrity describes as a “community chest organization” that gave money to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee to support Obama in battleground states.
In recent years, Duong’s political giving has shifted toward the Republican Party. In 2020, he gave more than $250,000 to the Trump Victory Political Action Committee. Two years later, he gave $155,000 to a Republican PAC that funded the campaigns of dozens of Republican candidates for the House of Representatives.
Andy Duong has donated $30,000 to candidates for federal office since 2012, according to campaign finance data. He gave $10,000 to a committee supporting Barack Obama and $7,200 to Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaigns over the past decade.
In California, the Duong family has funneled money to the Democratic Party.
The Duong family has donated thousands of dollars to leading California Democrats, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, who represented Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro in the state assembly from 2012 to 2021 and later became the state’s top law enforcement official. Bonta received thousands of dollars from David Duong and Andy Duong in 2021, but the elections committee appears to have returned most of the funds. But campaign finance records show Bonta received $6,100 from Andy Duong and $18,200 from David Duong last year for his 2026 reelection campaign.
Dozens of candidates for the state Assembly, state Senate and governor have also benefited from Duong’s donations, including former Gov. Jerry Brown, who received $10,000 from David Duong for his 2010 campaign, and Kamala Harris, who received $11,500 for her 2010 campaign for attorney general. Together, David and Andy Duong spent about $200,000 on state political campaigns.
California Waste Solutions and the Duong family have sponsored numerous events and hosted galas featuring prominent politicians. For example, the Vietnamese American Business Association, an organization run by the Duong family, held a lavish gala in Milpitas last year. Posters for the event touted guests such as California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Oakland Mayor Shen Thao.
The Duongs have also collected and posted numerous photos of themselves with political leaders, from President Joseph Biden to Oakland City Council members.
