Newsom accused the Justice Department of launching a baseless, politically motivated investigation<\/a> of him and his wife, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The Democratic governor, who is considering a 2028 run for president, at the time said that federal agents had \u201cknocked on the doors of family friends and former employees,\u201d and were digging through years of records in a quest to find any kind of wrongdoing by him or his wife.<\/p>\nNewsom\u2019s spokesperson Tara Gallegos called the latest developments part of a \u201cbaseless MAGA conspiracy theory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is just a sick man in the White House weaponizing the federal government to settle personal scores. It\u2019s deeply upsetting to see innocent staff, friends, and family have their names dragged through the mud just because they\u2019re associated with the Governor,\u201d Gallegos said in a statement. <\/p>\n
The subpoenas issued stated that the information sought was for an ongoing criminal inquiry and was signed by Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael D. Anderson, according to the Standard. The information requested included communications with Steve Kawa, who has served as head of the foundation and was Newsom\u2019s chief of staff when he was mayor of San Francisco, and Rebecca Prowda, who works for the foundation and is the wife of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, the news report stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not able to discuss any investigations at present, but the Protocol Foundation will continue its work, defraying costs from taxpayers while representing all Californians,\u201d said Lily Becker, an attorney who provided a statement on behalf of the foundation.<\/p>\n
The protocol foundation was created as a tax-exempt charity during Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s administration in 2004, and was intended to defray taxpayer costs for the governor\u2019s travel.<\/p>\n
When Schwarzenegger left office, his supporters turned the protocol foundation over to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown\u2019s backers, who in turn handed it over to Newsom\u2019s team. The foundation describes its mission in federal tax filings as \u201crelieving the State of California of its obligations to fund certain expenditures of the Governor\u2019s Office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newsom appoints members to the foundation board, which determines what expenses to cover in the governor\u2019s office. <\/p>\n
The foundation covers the cost of Newsom\u2019s international travel and certain domestic trips. His staff\u2019s travel is also covered by the foundation. The foundation paid nearly $4,000 for his trip to Mexico City to attend the inauguration of Mexico\u2019s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and paid $15,200 for the governor\u2019s 2023 trip to China, where he visited five cities in seven days.<\/p>\n
In 2020, the foundation paid $8,800 for Newsom to travel to Miami for Super Bowl LIV \u2014 where he said he was representing the state as the San Francisco 49ers faced the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n
Among the donors to the foundation are healthcare giants Centene and CVS Pharmacy. Others include the clean-energy nonprofit U.S. Energy Foundation, which donated $150,000 for the California delegation to attend COP30 in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $300,000 in a 2023 behested payment earmarked for the California delegation traveling to China for the meetings on climate change. UC Berkeley gave $220,000 for the governor\u2019s office\u2019s trip to the Vatican in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed an escalating federal investigation into his administration, including the donations that paid for his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,84657,1750,65980,53304,6386,182296,182299,3290,346,182298,6910,2422,182297,5988,4609],"class_list":["post-462873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-state-protocol-foundation","tag-cost","tag-democratic-governor","tag-family-friend","tag-foundation","tag-innocent-staff","tag-late-legal-development","tag-newsom","tag-office","tag-retribution","tag-san-francisco-standard","tag-travel","tag-travel-expense","tag-trip","tag-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}