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California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that he and his wife are being investigated by the Justice Department and accused President Donald Trump of targeting him for political reasons.
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“Today, my wife & I joined Donald Trump’s hit list. He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us,” he said in a post on X, referring to his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
Agents have “knocked on the doors on family friends and former employees. Not because they’ve found a crime, but because they’re trying to find one,” Newsom said in a video, posted on X. He said the investigators have demanded records and “random documents.”
The governor did not comment on the substance of the probe, but said agents were “coming after my wife, Jen, a public servant, a woman who’s dedicated her life to supporting women and girls, someone who has done nothing wrong other than having the temerity to advocate for what she believes in.”
“If they can’t intimidate me, they’ll go after the mother of our children. Donald Trump picked the wrong target. We have nothing to hide,” he said.
The White House referred NBC News to the DOJ for comment. The DOJ declined to comment.
Newsom, a Democrat who has repeatedly clashed with the president, said the probe is politically motivated because of his criticisms of Trump and because he is also considering a run for the Oval Office.
The reported probe follows a spree of federal indictments and investigations against Trump’s perceived political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. In all of those cases, Trump had publicly urged Justice Department officials to go after them. All have denied wrongdoing.
Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, has had an adversarial relationship with Newsom and has launched political attacks against the California governor on social media.
But the investigation does not appear to have emerged from Essayli’s office, but rather is being run out of Sacramento, under the control of Eastern District of California U.S. Attorney Eric Grant, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
Last month, Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, pleaded guilty to a few federal charges in a case out of that district. The governor’s wife is under investigation for “her taxes,” one of the sources said. The focus of the probe into Newsom is unclear.
A “fact sheet” released by Newsom’s office Monday afternoon said investigators had been seeking records and conducting interviews involving organizations connected to the Newsoms.
“In recent weeks, as Todd Blanche (the President’s personal attorney) took over as the acting head of DOJ, investigators have expanded their inquiry into increasingly personal matters involving the Governor’s family and professional network,” the document said.
Trump and Newsom have clashed repeatedly through the president’s second term over issues ranging from wildfire management, immigration, redistricting and the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard over the objections of the governor, whom Trump repeatedly refers to as “Newscum.”
Newsom suggested in his post that Trump should be the one under investigation, calling him “simply the most corrupt president in American history.”
Trump last year endorsed the idea of arresting Newsom during clashes between the administration and officials in California over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles. “Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing,” Trump told reporters.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters in April that it’s “appropriate” for the president to direct investigations.
The Trump administration also tried and failed to indict six sitting members of Congress over a social media video that reminded members of the military and intelligence communities not to obey unlawful orders after Trump claimed the video was “seditious behavior, punishable by death.”
Blanche was named to the job after Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi in April, in part because she’d struggled to carry out prosecutions of Trump’s targets, NBC News reported.
Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.
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