Newsom Plays the ‘Lawfare Victim’ Card
It worked for Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom reasoned, so why not complain that he and his wife are targets as a way to bolster his coming presidential bid?
Gavin Newsom is running for president in 2028. The California governor is widely expected to be at or near the front of the pack when he launches his campaign after the midterms, which is why he keeps himself front and center.
One of the lessons he learned in 2024 is that a candidate under investigation for crimes might be able to parlay that into a successful bid for the White House. Democrats threw every legal trick they had at Donald Trump, indicting and convicting him of “34 felonies,” as well as waging various other lawfare cases against him and even trying to keep him off the ballot. Trump won handily.
Me too, Newsom concluded.
“Today, my wife & I joined Donald Trump’s hit list,” he posted on X to introduce a five-minute video complaint. “He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us. They have not found a crime — they are simply trying to find one. He isn’t coming after me because of mean tweets, but because I am considering running for President. He hates that I consistently call him out. He is simply the most corrupt President in American history.”
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the self-styled “first partner of California,” chimed in, saying, “There are clearly no boundaries to what Donald Trump will do to get his way or to challenge those who get in his way. This is not presidential behavior, and the Governor and I will continue to speak truth to power because the American people deserve so much more.”
Heh — “the Governor and I will continue to speak truth to power.” Read that again. Slowly.
Accusations that Trump is weaponizing the Department of Justice aren’t new. Neither are they entirely unfounded, unfortunately. But they also aren’t unprecedented. Barack Obama and Joe Biden created a weaponized DOJ; Trump is dishing out payback, however ill-advised.
In fact, Newsom might want to revisit the timeline here. There are several probes related to Newsom, though none specifically target him, none is new, and one of them began — [checks notes] — during Biden’s administration.
“One investigation, which began in 2025, concerns his wife and her taxes,” reports The Daily Wire. “A separate DOJ investigation into Newsom’s chief of staff was launched during President Joe Biden’s administration and remains open and evolving, according to the source. Those investigations originated in Sacramento and involved whistleblowers and sources in the state, rather than coming from the main DOJ.”
Minor details, right?
Besides, if Newsom wants Trump to “leave my wife and family out of your personal vendetta,” maybe the governor shouldn’t be spending taxpayer money on his diaper blowout fraud involving his wife. Jennifer Siebel Newsom is best friends with Norah Weinstein, the CEO of Baby2Baby, the point organization for funds from Newsom’s diaper scam. Weinstein also sits on the board of Mrs. Newsom’s California Partners Project, one of the subjects of the DOJ tax probe. The whole scheme reeks.
As for the first partner’s other ventures, The Washington Free Beacon has more:
The investigations could center on whether Newsom illegally did favors for a Native American tribe he had told to donate to a gender-focused charity operated by Siebel Newsom, an arrangement several ethics watchdogs told the Washington Free Beacon in 2025 was riddled with red flags. Investigators could also be looking at as much as $1.5 million in personal income Siebel Newsom reportedly received from her production company, which produces far-left documentaries about gender and is funded by donations from corporations doing business with the state of California.
On top of that, multiple nonprofits and LLCs pay Mrs. Newsom far above market rate.
Newsom is clearly boosting his “street cred” ahead of his upcoming bid for the Democrat presidential nomination. Being a target of Trump’s weaponization should play well with campaign donors and voters.
He also clearly wants to project that he’s just defending his wife against targeting by a “sexual predator” like Trump — yes, Newsom also brought up the DOJ probe of Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll — but Mrs. Newsom is leading some shady operations all while her husband runs the Union’s largest state into the ground.
Shockingly, there might be reason to investigate.
In any case, I’m reminded of Samuel Adams’s admonition, “The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.”
