SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 6 (Our California Times) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused President Donald Trump on Monday of directing the Justice Department to investigate him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, calling it a “fishing expedition” and saying the couple had been placed on a “hit list.”
But people familiar with the federal inquiries said at least some of the work began before Trump returned to office, and that the investigations were rooted in California rather than at Justice Department headquarters in Washington.
A Justice Department source familiar with the matter said at least two criminal investigations connected to Newsom’s orbit have been open in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California for about a year. The source said one inquiry involving former Newsom chief of staff Dana Williamson was opened during the Biden administration.
The same source said the investigations grew out of whistleblower tips and local complaints in Sacramento. The reporting did not identify charges against Newsom, and the exact scope of the federal inquiries was not immediately clear.
A separate corruption case involving Williamson ended in a guilty plea in May and did not implicate the governor, according to the court case described in the reporting. Other accounts said investigators were also examining matters involving people in Newsom’s circle, including potential tax issues tied to his wife, but those details were not laid out in public filings in the material reviewed.
Newsom made the accusation in a public post and video statement as California Democrats continued to frame the matter as political retaliation. The federal inquiries, according to the sources cited in the reporting, were already underway before Trump’s latest clash with the governor.
