Newsom Says Trump Directed DOJ to Investigate Him and His Wife; Sources Say Probes Originated in California

Today’s Focus

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Monday that President Donald Trump (R) has directed the Justice Department to investigate him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, calling the probes politically motivated and tied to his potential 2028 presidential bid.

In a video statement posted to X, Newsom said federal agents had recently approached family, friends and former employees seeking records, accusing the administration of “abusing the grand jury process,” according to The Guardian.

“Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets,” Newsom said, according to PBS NewsHour. “He’s coming after me because I am considering running for president.”

A source familiar with the matter told The Guardian the Justice Department has been examining people close to Newsom for roughly a year, including a tax inquiry involving Siebel Newsom and a probe related to former chief of staff Dana Williamson, who recently pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges.

That source and a separate one cited by PBS NewsHour said the investigations originated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, based in Sacramento, rather than with Justice Department leadership in Washington.

The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment, according to The Guardian.

On Monday evening, Newsom’s office filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records about the inquiries and posted a copy publicly. “The American people deserve to know who ordered this abuse of power and how far it goes,” Newsom said in the statement.

Newsom compared his situation to that of former FBI Director James Comey and other Trump critics who have faced federal scrutiny, PBS NewsHour reported. The governor and the president have clashed repeatedly, most sharply over Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles last summer.

The Debate

Supporters argue

Newsom and his allies frame the investigations as part of a broader pattern of retaliation against Trump’s political opponents. The governor said federal agents are knocking on doors “not because they found a crime,” but “because they are simply trying to find one,” according to The Guardian.

Newsom argued that targeting a spouse raises the stakes. “To get me, he’s coming after my wife, Jen,” he said in remarks reported by Fox News, calling Trump “the most corrupt President in American history.”

Democrats have pointed to Trump’s past public calls for Newsom’s arrest as evidence of motive. The governor cited those statements in his video, saying the president “called for my arrest last year,” per Fox News.

Newsom also linked his case to other Trump critics under federal scrutiny, including Comey, telling viewers “the country is watching,” according to The Guardian. His office’s FOIA request seeks to force disclosure of who authorized the probes and when, arguing transparency is the only check on selective prosecution.

Critics argue

Trump administration defenders and some legal observers note that the reporting undercuts Newsom’s central claim. Sources cited by both PBS NewsHour and The Guardian said the investigations originated with career prosecutors in the Eastern District of California, not with Trump or Attorney General appointees in Washington.

Critics also point to the underlying facts. Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, The Guardian reported, suggesting at least one thread of the inquiry predates the current political dispute.

The tax matter involving Siebel Newsom is a civil and criminal area where the Justice Department routinely pursues investigations regardless of party, supporters of the probe argue.

Fox News highlighted Newsom’s framing of the investigation as tied to his White House ambitions, which critics characterize as an attempt to convert standard prosecutorial scrutiny into a campaign narrative. The White House had not publicly responded to Newsom’s allegations as of Monday night, according to The Guardian.

What the experts say

The Justice Department’s written policies require that investigations of elected officials be conducted without political influence, and a 2007 inspector general report on the firings of nine U.S. attorneys under the George W. Bush administration found that political interference with prosecutorial decisions damaged public confidence and led to multiple resignations, including that of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, where the Newsom-related probes reportedly originated, is led by a Senate-confirmed appointee but operates day-to-day through career line prosecutors who handle most public-corruption matters, according to the Department of Justice’s published organizational structure.

Brookings Institution governance scholar Norman Eisen has written that distinguishing legitimate corruption probes from politically directed ones typically requires examining grand jury timing, predication memos and the chain of approvals, documents not yet public in this case.

The Williamson guilty plea is a verifiable data point: federal court records show he entered a plea in the Eastern District of California, indicating an active corruption case in the orbit of the governor’s office that began before Newsom’s announcement.

By the Numbers

1: number of former Newsom chiefs of staff, Dana Williamson, who has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, according to The Guardian.

~1 year: approximate length of time the Justice Department has been investigating people close to Newsom, per a source cited by The Guardian.

2: number of ongoing probes confirmed by a source to PBS NewsHour as having originated with California-based prosecutors.

2028: presidential election cycle in which Newsom is widely considered a potential Democratic contender, The Guardian reported.

9: U.S. attorneys fired in the 2006-2007 Bush-era dismissals that triggered the inspector general review of political influence at DOJ.

1: Freedom of Information Act request filed Monday by Newsom’s office seeking records of the investigation, according to The Guardian.