Insight

What's good for Newsom and America are different

By Erika D. Smith Bloomberg Opinion

Published June 22, 2026

Gavin Newsom has his story and he's sticking to it. The question is whether others will too.

In video released earlier this week, the governor of California raised a lot of eyebrows when he revealed that he and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are under investigation by the Trump administration. Federal agents have been knocking "on the doors of family friends and former employees," he said, and "digging through years and years of random documents."

In Newsom's telling, this is pure political retribution - a "fishing expedition" for nonexistent crimes. After years of trading barbs with Trump, Newsom says he's being targeted just like former Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.

"One by one," the governor and likely presidential candidate said, "anyone who has challenged Donald Trump has ended up on his hit list."

But unlike Powell, Kelly, James and Comey, all of whom waited until their investigations were made public to defend themselves, Newsom has decided to go on offense. He announced what little information he had himself, beating the Trump administration to the punch. In doing so, Newsom has managed to shape his own narrative as a defiant victim of the president and a clear threat to MAGA.

Politically, this has already proved to be a shrewd, if self-serving move - one that is sure to provide a boost to Newsom's presidential ambitions for 2028. At a time when the Democratic Party's base has made clear that it wants candidates who will go toe-to-toe with Trump, the investigation is "the political version of a Purple Heart," as one Democratic strategist told Politico.

Unsurprisingly, then, Newsom has spent much of the week fundraising off being under investigation, while his team has successfully pushed other Democratic politicians to issue statements backing him up. Even some of Newsom's potential 2028 rivals have done so.

Speaking at a summit in Austria, former Vice President Kamala Harris said she was "not surprised" that Newsom is being targeted by Trump as a "political enemy." Illinois Governor JB Pritzker wrote on X that Trump's "attack" on Newsom "represents a dangerous escalation" and "another level of corruption."

Influencers have lined up behind the governor too. Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor surmised that "Trump is doing this because he thinks Gavin's talented and a possible competitor to the Republican Party and wants to take him out of the race preemptively by going after his family."

But what's good for partisan politics is not always good for government accountability.

By preemptively shaping the narrative, Newsom also has made it harder for nonpartisan Americans - or people who are just genuinely concerned about corruption - to determine whether this is indeed a Trump political vendetta or a legitimate investigation. There's at least some reason to question the latter.

Details remain sketchy and, officially, federal prosecutors have refused to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. But according to anonymous sources who've spoken with numerous media outlets this week, there appear to be at least two cases under way involving the Newsoms, both of which were initiated about a year ago.

The first case is reportedly tied to the governor's former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, who pleaded guilty last month to three felonies in a massive corruption case that also involved a longtime aide to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra. Neither Newsom nor Becerra has been accused of wrongdoing.

The second case is reportedly related to the finances of Siebel Newsom. She has faced criticism for years because several of the nonprofits she runs accept behested payments from companies that lobby the governor. Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has called behested payments "legalized corruption." The controversial state process allows elected officials to channel millions of dollars in philanthropic contributions to nonprofit causes. Siebel Newsom has denied any wrongdoing and has never been charged with a crime.

Also according to anonymous sources, neither case is politically motivated. And federal prosecutors with the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California opened both based on complaints from whistleblowers, not because of Justice Department officials in Washington, they say.

But Newsom is sticking to his story. On Monday, he filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all communications from top Justice Department officials that mention the governor or his wife. "The American people deserve to know who ordered this abuse of power, what they were looking for and how far it goes," Newsom wrote on X.

To be fair, what Newsom is alleging isn't entirely without precedent. In January, a senior Justice Department official told US attorneys offices that they should be "hounding" federal agents to come up with cases to file against Americans protesting immigration agents. "Go big and go loud," was the directive. Many US attorney's offices subsequently tried and failed, with their cases often seen by the public as politically motivated.

Such stories are why many Americans, especially Democrats, are likely to be skeptical of whatever the Trump administration says about the investigation of the governor and his wife - and potentially about whatever charges may result from it. Whether they will believe Newsom instead is another story.

Trust in politicians remains at historic lows, polls have found, and that's something that cuts across party lines. Similarly, a recent Brennan Center poll found that Democrats, Republicans and independents all share deep-seated concerns about government corruption. More than 90% of voters believe it permeates every institution.

Federal investigations that turn into partisan exercises don't address that. But that's not the story Newsom is looking to tell.

Erika D. Smith is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.