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By Paul Roland Bois (Breitbart)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had been attending a cocktail party at the U.S. Embassy in Ghana when the Pacific Palisades fire erupted.
As Breitbart News reported last week, Bass had been visiting Ghana in Africa at the time of the wildfires, despite having over 24 hours’ notice ahead of what experts predicted would be the worst windstorm to hit Los Angeles since 2011. According to the Los Angeles Times, the mayor was enjoying a cocktail party at the U.S. Embassy when the fires broke out.
“Bass was in the West African nation as part of a Biden administration delegation to the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, which she had attended earlier in the day. She traveled abroad on Jan. 4 as the National Weather Service intensified warnings about a coming windstorm and arrived back in Los Angeles at around 11 a.m. on Jan. 8, more than 24 hours after the fires ignited,” noted the Times.
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A spokesperson for Bass said that the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana hosted the reception and that the mayor had been making calls in another room throughout most of the party. She later departed on a military plane.
“I was on the phone, on the plane, almost every hour of the flight,” she told reporters recently. “So although I was not physically here, I was in contact with many of the individuals that are standing here throughout the entire time. When my flight landed, I immediately went to the fire zone and saw what happened in Pacific Palisades.”
NEW: The LA Times reports LA Mayor Karen Bass was at an embassy cocktail party in Ghana when the #PalisadesFire first broke out last Tuesday. Bass had left LA days beforehand, as weather forecasts were predicting a serious wind event & major fire risk.https://t.co/RUJXE1UT3s
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 15, 2025
However, the Times noted that Bass appeared to have been posing for photos around 8 p.m. Ghana time, which would have been 12 p.m. Los Angeles after the fires had started. Evacuation orders in the Pacific Palisades were issued minutes later. Photos of Bass were posted on Instagram and LinkedIn by Marissa Bowman, a city staffer.
“The presidential delegation was hosted by the United States ambassador to Ghana on the way to the plane,” said Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl. “For the majority of the time, the mayor was in a different room on calls from L.A.”
Critics of Bass have also noted that her ability to govern while outside the country was further diminished by the fact that Los Angeles Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Brian Williams had been on-leave after being investigated by the FBI for allegedly calling in a bomb threat to city hall.
Reports also indicated Mayor Bass cut nearly $20 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department budget, which LAFD fire chief Kristin Crowley says hindered firefighters’ ability to repel the blaze.
“This isn’t a new problem for us,” Crowley said. “The fire department needs to be funded appropriately so that I can look any community member in the eye and say your LAFD’s got your back.”
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube, Tubi, or Fawesome TV. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
