Long-running accusations of anti-Semitism that for years dogged California’s troubled National Guard resurfaced at a crucial time for the force that is currently battling historic Los Angeles wildfires. A fired commander with extensive firefighting experience has filed a lawsuit alleging he’s now on the sidelines because he’s Jewish.
Brigadier General Jeffrey Magram is suing the state of California, Governor Gavin Newsom (D.), and Adjutant General Matthew Beevers, a Newsom appointee who was previously accused of referring to his Jewish subordinates as "kike lawyers." Magram claims his dismissal was driven by anti-Semitic animus.
The California National Guard is the largest such force in the country, and 2,500 guard members (including some reinforcements from Nevada and Wyoming) are now battling the wildfires from the air and the ground, as well as helping with public safety. But the "scandal plagued" guard, as the Los Angeles Times calls it, has been bogged down by unseemly allegations of impropriety, including the coverup of an incident in which someone urinated in a guardswoman’s boot, indecent exposure at a restaurant, retaliation against whistleblowers, and the use of spy planes and fighter jets to monitor and intimidate protesters.
Magram’s ouster just over two years ago came after an inquiry found he used military personnel for personal tasks, among other infractions that the inquiry claimed compromised his leadership. He was one of five generals who were fired or retired under pressure amid ballooning scandals at the guard in the last few years. But in his lawsuit, Magram—who was not implicated in the more lurid scandals that dogged the guard—argues he was targeted in a smear campaign that overlooked a sterling record because he is Jewish.
Magram claims that Beevers, who orchestrated his firing, was retaliating against him for defending a fellow Jew from Beevers’s anti-Semitic rants. Beevers discriminated against Magram, his lawsuit alleges, because of "Magram’s Jewish heritage" and his "complaints about Beevers’ anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment."
"Beevers never considered any of the significant contributions I made to the Air National Guard, the Military Department, and to California’s public safety," Magram told the Washington Free Beacon. "I believe he saw me as another ‘kike,’ and I should not be part of running the department. His actions certainly show that."
Magram, 59, who has 4 children aged 11 and under, says he lost a significant portion of his state pension and now earns a fraction of the pay a retired general his age typically makes in the private sector. His lawsuit seeks at least $5 million in damages for back pay and lost benefits.
In his effort to prove discrimination, Magram points to his personnel file, which is replete with glowing reviews for his record fighting natural disasters. "Lives saved" is a common refrain in Magram’s officer performance reports, which credit him with leading the California Air National Guard’s response to some of the most catastrophic wildfires in state history.
Magram had 37 years of military experience and was only 3 years away from being able to retire with a full pension when Beevers issued a memo in June 2022, deeming him unfit to serve as a senior leader. The memo initiated a long, bureaucratic process that would ultimately end later that year with Newsom ordering Magram’s termination from state service.
The Beevers memo cited a heavily redacted 2021 report from the U.S. Air Force’s inspector general, who was investigating the California National Guard, that claimed Magram "had subordinates transport [him] to personal appointments and run personal errands on multiple occasions." Beevers said the conduct described in the report caused him to lose confidence in Magram’s ability to serve as a senior military leader.
But Magram says that Beevers weaponized a flawed report to justify his firing, thus depriving California of one of its most talented wildfire containment specialists amid a crisis.
A Free Beacon review of an unredacted version of the IG report uncovered significant discrepancies. Magram was on military orders for most of what government investigators described as "personal errands," and the report relied on testimony from witnesses with clear conflicts of interest.
All the while, investigators for the Air Force inspector general, Sami Said, failed to interview witnesses who told the Free Beacon they would have said under oath that the conduct in which Magram engaged was appropriate.
Other senior military leaders at the state and federal levels did not believe the IG report justified Magram’s termination. Beevers’s predecessor, now-retired adjutant general David Baldwin, told the Free Beacon that California would be far better off right now if Magram was on the front lines.
"I worked closely with Magram for 20 years plus on emergency operations. When I was adjutant general, he would be the first guy that we would send" to a disaster, Baldwin said. "Wildfires were his bread and butter."
Baldwin noted that the Air Force had written Magram a "letter of admonishment" in 2021 due to the IG report, which also found that he had a female subordinate drive his mother to shop at Whole Foods eight years prior. The letter, from U.S. Air Force general David Allvin, "is indicative that the four star general thought that this was perhaps a minor lapse in judgment," Baldwin said.
The California National Guard told the Los Angeles Times in July 2022 the allegations were not "career-ending" at the same time Beevers was using the IG report to engineer Magram’s termination.
Beevers and the California National Guard did not return requests for comment.
Inspectors General: the 'protectors of the deep state'
To veterans advocate Jeremy Sorenson, a director of the Uniformed Services Justice & Advocacy Group, Magram’s story is symptomatic of the federal government’s corrupt inspector general system.
Inspectors general claim to be independent, but by law, they report to the head of the agency they oversee. It’s a system that breeds corruption, Sorenson argued.
"The inspector general at a base reports to the base commander," Sorenson told the Free Beacon. "If he identifies misconduct anywhere on the base, that’s not good for the inspector general."
President Trump has pledged to reform the inspector general system by making its actors truly independent "so that they do not become protectors of the deep state."
As Magram was fighting to keep his job in the wake of Beevers’s letter, the bad blood was running deep at the top of the California guard. Months after he retired, Baldwin levied an explosive allegation against Beevers, who’d succeeded him on an interim basis. He said that in June 2022, during a private conversation, Beevers described the leadership of the California State Guard, then led by a Jewish attorney, Major General Jay Coggan, as an organization "run by a bunch of kike lawyers."
In November, Newsom ordered California Military Department inspector general Saul Rangel to investigate.
Magram, who was still serving but fighting Beevers’s efforts to fire him, testified to investigators about a May 2021 conversation in which he claimed Beevers said to him that Coggan was "fucking cheap" and "gives you guys a bad name." Magram said he pushed back at Beevers.
Beevers denied making any anti-Semitic remarks and Rangel closed his probe after interviewing only Magram and Baldwin. Rangel’s report stated he could not substantiate the allegations against Beevers, his boss.
In June 2023, Newsom formally appointed Beevers to lead the guard. The governor’s spokesman, Izzy Gardon, told the Free Beacon that the allegations against Beevers "were thoroughly and independently investigated by the appropriate authorities and were found to be fully unsubstantiated."
Turning military orders into 'personal errands'
Sorenson said government leaders can use their inspectors general as a cudgel.
"In Jeff’s case, they wanted to go after Jeff," Sorenson said. "So they came up with a substantiated finding."
The 2021 Air Force inspector general report said Magram violated military regulations when he asked subordinates to transport him to medical appointments, described as "personal errands." But documents reviewed by the Free Beacon show the visits were not "personal errands." Magram, who’d been injured while on deployment to Qatar in 2015, was under orders to receive procedures and other treatments at a military medical facility.
The military doctor who performed one such procedure, at Travis Air Force Base, said to the Free Beacon that he told Magram to have a military safety driver transport him to and from the appointment because he would be going under general anesthesia. "He did what I told him, as his doctor, to do," says the physician, who requested anonymity. "He was being safe, having someone drive him home so that he didn’t crash his car. That’s a good thing."
The doctor said he would have told Said and his investigators exactly that, but "no one contacted me from the IG." He added that it was unusual because he’s been involved in other probes that were "exceptionally exhaustive."
Magram’s attorney, Aaron Drake, said the military’s Joint Travel Regulations "explicitly allow a medical ‘attendant’ to drive a military member to medical appointments."
"Although the IG substantiated this allegation, clearly it was never a violation of law or regulation," Drake told the Free Beacon.
The Air Force inspector general’s office did not return a request for comment.
Said's report also alleged Magram inappropriately ordered a female servicemember to take his mother grocery shopping in 2013, long before he was promoted to brigadier general. The servicemember told investigators she was afraid to refuse the request and that the mother insisted on going to Whole Foods where she spent a long time engaging in "comparison shopping." It was an allegation Beevers cited nine years later in his memo recommending Magram’s termination.
Magram says the servicemember volunteered to help his mother while he was on convalescent leave and that she didn’t report to him. Her supervisor, Charles Ingalls, a colonel who’s now retired, told the Free Beacon she never complained.
"I would expect that, with me having an open door policy, if someone had a concern or a complaint that would have come to me. But there was nothing," he said.
Ingalls said Said and his investigators never contacted him.
Beevers said in his June 2022 memo that Magram’s alleged conduct was particularly egregious because Said reported he was warned in 2017 not to let subordinates take him to personal appointments.
Beevers was citing "credible" testimony provided to Said by Major General Clay Garrison. Records obtained by the Free Beacon suggest Garrison held a grudge against Magram that long predated the testimony he provided to Said.
Magram was promoted to brigadier general after Garrison was fired in April 2019 for his involvement in a scandal dubbed "pissgate" or "Piss and Boots." A female staff sergeant under Garrison’s command discovered someone had urinated in her boots, and the Los Angeles Times reported that high ranking officers in the California National Guard suspected Garrison of trying to interfere in the investigations that followed.
Months after he was fired, and a year before he testified in Said’s investigation, Garrison sent Magram a strange and threatening text.
"If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say you were avoiding me! Don’t worry, I have a picture for you as well. Very subversive," Garrison texted Magram on Aug. 13, 2019.
Garrison told the Free Beacon the text was black humor, referring to how people didn’t want to be seen with him due to the scandals. He was telling Magram that he had a picture of them together.
"Giving you a picture is very subversive," Garrison explained. "If you’re associated with me, you’re dead, your career is over."
But about an hour after sending the "subversive" text, Garrison sent another message saying he heard Magram had complained about him—falsely, he says—to airmen of the California National Guard.
"I am deeply disturbed by these statements, especially from you," Garrison texted.
Speaking to the Free Beacon, Garrison stood behind the testimony he provided to Said, saying Magram "had a tendency to use our subordinates in a way that would get you in trouble if you’re a colonel or a general officer."
A key ally of Garrison in the California National Guard also played a role in the Magram probe. The non-redacted version of the IG report obtained by the Free Beacon reveals that the initial complaint that sparked the investigation came from a woman who’d served as Garrison’s full-time legal adviser, Caryn Warren. She complained that Magram was interfering with her ability to do her job. Her complaint, which arose from the tortured "pissgate" investigations, was discredited after investigators learned, according to the report, that she was considered by some guard members to be Garrison’s "henchman"—and Magram was cleared in regards to her allegation.
Warren also claimed that Magram interfered with the promotions of five female servicemembers. But four of those women testified that Magram did not interfere with their careers. Investigators cleared Magram of any wrongdoing for deferring the fifth woman's promotion.
Warren told the Free Beacon that Said "failed to do a proper investigation."
"There were many more women that needed to be interviewed, because there was a lot more information out there about the misdoings of Gen. Magram," Warren said.
In 2022, Magram expressed concerns to state investigators with the California Military Department inspector general—which was conducting a separate probe—that Garrison and Warren would try to discredit him in retaliation for his role in "pissgate."
The two were removed from the sordid inquiries "due to conflicts of interest associated with the Piss and Boots and other investigations," Magram told state investigators. Garrison "had significant issues with not being able to oversee what was going on."
The state officials went ahead and published their own report in May 2022 that alleged Magram had subordinates drive him to repair shops where his car was being serviced a few times between 2016 and 2018.
Two Magram subordinates testified to state investigators they did not feel obligated to drive Magram to the repair shops and feared no reprisals if they refused. Magram testified the trips were detours of no more than a few miles for his subordinates and that Caryn Warren, then his ethics officer, told him "it shouldn’t be an issue."
State investigators determined that Magram’s conduct "reflected a broader, longstanding practice" at the time in the California Air National Guard. Still, they concluded that Magram violated military regulations in large part because they found no evidence Warren issued her ethics opinion in writing. Beevers cited the state investigation in his June 2022 memo recommending Magram's termination.
Magram challenged the Beevers memo and requested a disciplinary action board hearing to defend his fitness to serve. But the board sided with Beevers and ruled unanimously that Magram should be separated from state duty.
Newsom sided with Beevers and the board, with his office issuing an order to separate Magram from state active duty on Nov. 10, 2022. Magram was formally removed from the California National Guard on Jan. 9, 2023.
Almost exactly two years later, wildfires began to tear across greater Los Angeles.