Exclusive | Mystery California lobbyist used bogus million-dollar boasts to land taxpayer contracts

A Southern California lobbyist who interned in the Clinton administration with Monica Lewinsky has been making lofty claims to win taxpayer-funded contracts — but some of the cities and public agencies on his killer resumé say they couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.Jaime Rojas, president of Rojas Public Affairs, has been collecting thousands in taxpayer fees from a Southern California agency after he bragged about securing tens of millions in federal funds, but officials who spoke to The California Post are increasingly worried the lobbyist’s grandiose pitches are based on lies.“It is shocking,” Patterson City Manager Fernando Ulloa told The Post. Rojas spoke before the Phelan Piñon Hills Community Services District board in January 2025, touting a record of securing more than $90 million in state and federal funding.

The district subsequently awarded Rojas a contract paying $5,000 per month.But in documents submitted to that agency and others, Rojas’ firm has overstated or made up multimillion-dollar funding claims in writing while seeking taxpayer funds, including a three-year lobbying deal tied to Gypsum Canyon Memorial Park and a planned state veterans cemetery in Orange County.In his presentation to Phelan Piñon Hills, Rojas claimed his firm had “secured $5 million in federal funds” for the city of Patterson to support infrastructure and community service projects.“I have never heard of him or had communications with him.I don’t know who he is,” Ulloa told The Post. Officials from five other cities and public agencies told The California Post that Rojas — a former president of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and currently board member for the Los Angeles Latino Chamber of Commerce — had never worked with them, disputed the amount of funds he claimed to have delivered or said he exaggerated his role in securing the money.Earlier this year, in a letter to the Orange County Cemetery District, Rojas submitted a proposal ...