Alameda Dems' secretive election committee led by Israel partisan

Trish Munro, a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council’s “BANJO” network, described the need for secrecy. (From video)

New video and documents reveal Alameda County (California) Democratic Central Committee is doubling down on prior voter suppression with new secretive “Election Committee” headed by Jewish Community Relations Committee militant Trish Munro, an Israel partisan

By Marin County Confidential, excerpt from Marin’s Newsletter

Back in February, I reported that JCRC/BANJO militant Trish Munro was allowed to hijack in-person Democratic delegate voting in AD14, in which only 250 ballots were provided for in-person polling that had previously drawn 1,800 in-person voters.

In a direct rebuke to the most pro-ceasefire district in the State of California, the only in-person voting for AD14 was held in pro-Israel Temple Beth Israel, which likely explains why the voters who did show up were almost entirely white and elderly. AD14 includes not only the pro-ceasefire City of Richmond, but the University of California Berkeley, where pro-Palestinian protesters were targeted both by law enforcement and the local Israel lobby, and where, we have recently learned, twelve international students just received notice of visa revocations.

You might have thought after all that, that the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee (Alameda DCC) would have been slightly more wary of Munro. But you’d be wrong.

An Unusual Call From A Former Prosecutor:

Earlier on the same day as the April meeting of the Alameda DCC, I was asked to join a conference call with two DCC members who had taken issue with a recent article I had published and were ”requesting” edits. One of them had worked as a “progressive prosecutor” in the office of Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco District Attorney.

This was admittedly a new experience for me; most people who object to an article send an email. But prosecutors are a special breed of people accustomed to an even higher level of immunity than even police possess – prosecutors have absolute immunity. Why should they commit their request into writing if they could just bully you on the phone?

[If Americans Knew would like to highlight local reporting on this issue. If you know of similar reports in your community, please email contact@ifamericansknew.org]

Neither the prosecutor nor their ally were able to make any case for edits during the 14-minute conference call. I suggested to both that the conference call idea was a bad look for them, and that they should simply write me an email. (I eventually received the email, and it also failed to make the case for any edits.)

And neither mentioned that there was an Alameda DCC meeting that evening, nor that there was a pro-Palestinian resolution on the agenda. I found that out later that day, and was able to ride over in time to the Teamsters building in Oakland where the meeting was held.

A Meeting At The Teamsters Joint Council 7

Predictably, the pro-Palestinian resolution was first moved to the back of the agenda and later removed due to time constraints by Party Chair Igor Tregub. The resolution had been in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian student organizer who had been kidnapped by ICE. Alameda DCC member Trish Munro had predictably attempted to water down the resolution to remove any mention of Khalil, Palestinians, or Palestine. With the largely meaningless resolution dispatched, Alameda DCC Party Chair Igor Tregub announced shortly before the end of the meeting that a new elections committee had been established to try to address the issues it had this past year, with (surprise!) JCRC militant Trish Munro as its head. From the back of the room, you could hear the murmur of dissent when this was disclosed.

You might remember Munro as the JCRC/BANJO member who torpedoed in-person delegate polling last February, and who wrote the infamous screed with the title “It. Is. Not. A. Genocide.” in July 2024, months after the ICJ case against Israel had been filed. As the attorney Craig Mokhiber has explained, the promotion of genocide can itself be prosecuted. Instead of being censured for her actions, Munro is now promoted by the Alameda County DCC to lead an election committee. Why are Alameda County Dems not protesting this? Why are any attorneys working with Munro (actually, under Munro) on this committee?

Munro described the need for secrecy on the committee in the following manner as captured on video:

Tregub’s announcement of the new committee raised immediate concerns from the audience, as it was revealed that the committee meetings would not be open, not even to other members of the Alameda DCC. In other words, the meetings would be entirely secret for all but the committee members. But even Alameda DCC members had little idea who was on the committee beyond three named members.

Tregub insisted that DCC members had received two whole emails about the committee, and it had been their responsibility to sign up for the committee on time. But Alameda DCC members left out of the process indicated that only one email had been sent a mere week before the meeting; in that email, the notice was buried at the bottom of the email and included no deadline.

A Korean American member wished to raise legitimate concerns about how the committee was put together. Tregub pushed back before letting her speak. As she expressed her concerns, Trish Munro came and stood before her. Munro stood legs apart, arms crossed. Munro’s body language was blunt.

Video:

I myself asked questions about the formation of the committee (see video at very top of article), and Trish Munro’s response is sadly typical of how JCRC and BANJO members respond to questions – either with rage, or in JCRC/BANJO member Blaustein’s case on September 26, by sicc’ing the police on the person raising the question.

During the entirety of the meeting, it was revealed that the prosecutor who had insisted that I join the conference call earlier that day, Yoana Tchoukleva, had also been chosen by Munro to serve on the committee. I followed up with Tchoukleva in the following days and received only evasive answers. Neither Tregub nor Tchoukleva nor Democratic Party Regional Director Rocky Fernandez would release the committee roster or any relevant documents, despite repeated requests. The only other person on the committee whose name was disclosed is Seema Badar; I reached out to her but she too has declined to respond.

Tchoukleva’s sparse response included the claim that the committee is “diverse” yet she offered no evidence for this. She claimed she is not permitted by the other members on the roster to reveal their names. But why were these members being so secretive?

And what is the value of “diversity” on a committee that insists on meeting outside of view of even the insiders in the Alameda DCC?

My criticism isn’t so much about any individual involved in this, but of ourselves as the larger group that will necessarily partake in whatever election “reforms” the committee concocts behind closed doors. Isn’t it our responsibility not just to ask but to demand that the process be open and transparent?

Perhaps the reason I was the only person asking obvious question about Trish Munro’s heading the committee at the Alameda DCC meeting wasn’t because I am so insistent on getting the party to address the failed in-person delegate polling, or the influence of the local Israel lobby. Mostly it was because I was the only non-insider who found out about the meeting in time to get to the meeting, which was held far from public transit, past the Oakland Coliseum. That difficult location can only be by design: if the Alameda DCC wanted regular workingclass Democrats to attend, the kind of people who don’t have to stand on ceremony like DCC members have to, they would hold the meeting in downtown Oakland.

I mentioned that logistics problem after the meeting to California Democratic Party Regional Director Rocky Fernandez, who replied that it was hard to find meeting space in downtown Oakland. That didn’t seem credible; I had just come through there and downtown Oakland felt like a near ghost town as so many places do given “work from home” policies and downsizing.

To his credit, Fernandez told me he didn’t disagree that Harris had lost the election over the Gaza issue. But if that was what he thought, why hadn’t he said that publicly in any of his comments during the meeting? Why hadn’t anyone? Except for some wonderful dissent from the back of the room (at one point, a member called out that the meeting was more Trumpian than democratic), the whole meeting had the stale odor of Versailles to it.

What Does the Democratic Party Owe Its Voters?

Distinct from all the bland truisms uttered at last Saturday’s corporate-organized anti-Trump protests, Pankaj Mishra’s observation about the significance of the global south’s support for the Palestinian cause holds true. The corresponding reality is that a party that relies on the votes of Black, Latino, Asian, and young voters has no future if it continues to support Israel’s genocide.

If local Democrats had stood up in the immediate aftermath of the Trish Munro-led in-person polling fiasco at Beth Israel – if they had demanded censure or at least pursued legal action – then Party Chair Tregub would not have been able to appoint Munro to head the elections committee. You cannot say you want change and fasten yourself to the worst political traditions. Choose wisely, please.

Part III. Taxpayers Against Genocide Keeps Plugging Away

There is some good news from Taxpayers Against Genocide: Marin County’s Jane Jewell sent this note earlier today:

“I am really honored and proud to share that TAG’s Report to the United Nations, for the universal periodic review of the United States (for complicity and participation in genocide) has been filed this morning.”

Jewell also sent me this link to a radio interview with two of TAG’s lawyers, Huwaida Arraf and Margaret DeMatteo. That same link includes an interview with award-winning investigative reporter Peter Byrne on the militarization of AI and the profiteers behind it.

Former San Francisco reporter Yasha Levine has a new book, Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet, and if you don’t have time to read it, his interview with Chris Hedges is incredible. If you’re a Pynchon fan, some of Levine’s book limns with content in Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice.

Thanks as always to patient readers.

Marin County Confidential is “An investigative approach to Marin County (California) history and politics.” ©️2025 Eva Chrysanthe

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