Two fellow OC supervisors call for Andrew Do to be forced out of power and resign immediately

Two of Andrew Do’s fellow Orange County supervisors called Monday for the state attorney general to have Do removed from office — and for Do to resign immediately.

In addition to the calls by Supervisors Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento for Do to be ousted, Board Chair Don Wagner said Monday he had moved for a vote on "the removal of Supervisor Andrew Do from all board/chairman committee assignments."

Wagner, in his most pointed comments to date, said in the statement: "I expect unanimous approval when the matter comes forward early next month. I am, of course, aware of the calls for Supervisor Do to resign from the board and expect him to seriously consider his future on this elected body, especially for the sake of the citizens of the First District."

While the board is scheduled to meet Tuesday, the vote on whether to remove Do from committee assignments would not take place until a Sept. 10 meeting.

The new pressure comes amid a growing controversy over what happened to millions of public funds Do directed to a nonprofit now being sued by the county. That lawsuit, filed earlier this month, alleges the nonprofit Viet America Society “brazenly plundered these funds for their own personal gain” and names Do’s daughter Rhiannon Do among the defendants.

'Historic betrayal of public trust'

Foley cited a “historic betrayal of public trust” in a statement released Monday. Ahead of Wagner saying he would call for a vote, Foley had urged her fellow supervisors to strip Do of his appointments as supervisor.

“Supervisor Andrew Do shattered public trust and each day his presence on the Board of Supervisors delegitimizes the office in which we sit. Andrew Do must resign,” Foley said in a statement.

Last week, FBI and IRS agents searched a North Tustin residence Do owns with his wife Cheri Pham, the assistant president judge for O.C. Superior Court. Foley said Monday the search of a residence not located in the district Do represents calls into “question whether he even resides in District 1, as required by election law.” She is urging Attorney General Rob Bonta to start the process of removing him from office.

A home Do and his wife own in Westminster, which is in his district, was not listed by the IRS as a search location. LAist did not immediately hear from the FBI about whether the Westminster location was searched by its agents, nor from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Do did not return a phone message for comment Monday morning. And Bonta’s office did not immediately provide comment.

Later Monday morning, on LAist’s AirTalk, Sarmiento joined calls for Do to immediately resign. And in a subsequent interview with LAist, he said Do should be removed from power.

“He now has compromised the ability for us to operate as a county and for him to perform the functions as a supervisor for his constituents. And those [people living in his district] are some of the neediest constituents” in the county, Sarmiento told LAist.

“I think at this point it is clear… everything that is occurring goes back to his office,” he added.

Pressure on Do intensifies

It was the first time any of Do’s fellow supervisors have called for him to step down immediately or be removed from office. Sarmiento previously said Do should resign if allegations in the county’s recent fraud lawsuit are true. In December, Sarmiento was the first supervisor to call for an investigation after LAist’s first investigative story on the issue.

Do is elected to the Board of Supervisors from District 1, which includes Garden Grove and Westminster, but the family home searched by the FBI and IRS is located in North Tustin, in District 3.

State law requires county supervisors to reside in the district they represent during their tenure. Shortly after he was elected supervisor in 2015, Do was investigated over his residency by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, which announced later that year that they had not found sufficient evidence he was living outside the district in which he ran for office.

Supervisor Andrew Do represents District 1 where he owns a home in Westminster. The family home searched by federal authorities last week is located in unincorporated North Tustin, which is in District 3.

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Courtesy OC

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Asked for comment, Supervisor Doug Chaffee’s office provided a statement from Chaffee saying he supports a “state and federal investigation.” The statement does not call for Do to resign or be removed. Chaffee has previously called Do his “mentor.”

In his statement Monday, Wagner emphasized that Do "is entitled to the full protections of the law as these cases move forward and I urge against a rush to judgment in these matters, as I do in all legal proceedings. I have the utmost confidence in our legal system and will accept the findings of this investigation and the rulings of the courts."

At the same point, he said he was "certain" no further discretionary spending would be approved by the board "without a full vetting of any such proposed expenditures.”

The backstory

In addition to FBI and IRS searches last week at Do’s North Tustin home, federal agents also searched a nearby home owned by his daughter Rhiannon Do. Searches were also executed at multiple properties connected to a months-long LAist investigation into millions of tax dollars that have gone unaccounted for.

The searches came days after Orange County officials filed a pair of lawsuits alleging more than $13 million in taxpayer money allocated by Do was misspent. The lawsuit allegations include that Rhiannon Do and other leaders of the nonprofit Viet America Society “brazenly plundered” millions Supervisor Do had directed to them between early 2021 and fall 2023.

The lawsuit claims Rhiannon Do and her associates at the nonprofit refused to show how they spent those millions of dollars in public funds, and used the money to purchase properties and make home improvements.

The money was paid from the county’s share of federal pandemic relief funds, and was required by contracts to only be spent on feeding seniors and people with disabilities during the pandemic, as well as building a Vietnam War memorial in Fountain Valley.

An attorney for VAS has pushed back on the county’s legal action against the nonprofit, saying the suit is riddled with errors and is a “hatchet job.”

Foley calls it 'unacceptable' for Do to keep getting paid

In her statement, Foley also asked her fellow supervisors to remove Supervisor Do from his board appointments.

“His continued receipt of taxpayer compensation and benefits is unacceptable, especially when he is unable to attend Board meetings or do the minimum requirements of the job,” Foley said in her statement.

In a statement to LAist, Foley’s deputy chief of staff Alyssa Napuri said the board was informed that Supervisor Do will not attend Tuesday’s meeting and “will likely miss a number of meetings in the future.”

Sarmiento says he gave Do a chance

“I wanted him to consider. I wanted to make sure I had given him the opportunity to resign, given everything that is swirling around him,” Sarmiento told LAist on Monday.

“But at this point, the investigations, the connection to Viet America Society — it’s too overwhelming and too clear,” Sarmineto said, adding that it’s going to limit Do’s ability to perform his duties as supervisor.

The resignation calls come the day after LAist reported that Supervisor Do defended his family and Viet America Society during a radio segment the night of Aug. 15, hours after the county filed its fraud lawsuit alleging Do’s daughter and others “plundered” millions of tax dollars Supervisor Do had given them.

During the segment, which LAist had translated, Supervisor Do criticized fellow O.C. Republican Janet Nguyen, a state senator currently running for Do's seat, the media and others for what he called slander against his “whole family.”

Other calls for Do to resign

Foley and Sarmiento are among several elected officials and groups to call on Supervisor Do to resign in recent days.

On Saturday, the Democratic Party of Orange County called for his resignation, saying the embattled supervisor has "compromised his credibility with the people he serves."

LAist has reached out to the Republican Party of Orange County for comment. We will update the story if we receive a response.

Both the candidates running to replace Do, who is termed out in December, have also called for him to resign. The candidates are Nguyen and Cypress City Councilmember Frances Marquez.

And community organizations VietRISE and Harbor Institute for Immigrant & Economic Justice recently reiterated their calls for Andrew Do’s resignation.

“Residents continue to face skyrocketing rents, evictions, and homelessness, yet Supervisor Do used his position to divert taxpayer dollars towards million-dollar properties for his own family and friends,” the statement from both organizations said. “Supervisor Do has failed the residents of his own District, including the working-class immigrants and refugees of Little Saigon.”

• Follow LAist reporter Nick Gerda on the latest developments

Next board of supervisors public meeting is Tuesday

The Orange County Board of Supervisors are set to meet on Tuesday at their regularly scheduled meeting. It starts at 9:30 a.m.

Here’s how you can follow along:

• Attend in person: The Board of Supervisors meets in the County Administration North, Board Hearing Room, First Floor, 400 W Civic Center Dr, Santa Ana.
• Listen to the meeting via phone: Call (866) 590-5055. Access code: 4138489
• Watch the live broadcast

To submit a comment, you can attend in person, dial in or submit a comment via email to response@ocgov.com.