California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said on Monday the Department of Justice is investigating him and his wife. Without stating what the Justice Department could be investigating, Newsom, one of President Donald Trump’s fiercest critics, said in a video posted to YouTube that “federal agents have knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees, not because they found a crime but because they’re simply trying to find one.”
Newsom Accuses Trump of Weaponizing Justice Department
“Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets,” Newsom said. “He’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president.” Since retaking office, Trump has turned the Justice Department into a tool of his own resentments, targeting perceived enemies with prosecutions that range from questionable to baseless. Newsom is the first potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate to be targeted by a federal investigation.
History of Targeting Political Opponents
This wouldn’t be the first time that Trump manufactured criminal or corruption concerns about a presidential candidate. In 2019, Trump tried to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into announcing a corruption investigation into Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. This led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Newsom claimed that the investigation into him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are the product of a thoroughly corrupted administration. “Donald Trump is simply the most corrupt president in history,” Newsom said before entering into a litany of Trump’s abuses of power and attempts to enrich himself. “This is the behavior of a regime, not a republic,” Newsom added.
