There is a certain kind of confidence that comes from telling the public you have nothing to hide while simultaneously hiring a criminal defense attorney whose name you refuse to share. Gavin Newsom has apparently found that confidence, and he is wearing it like a tailored suit to a perp walk rehearsal.
As reported by Trending Views, it has been nearly a month since Newsom announced, completely unprompted, that he and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom are under federal criminal investigation by the DOJ. His initial response was the standard political crisis playbook: call it a witch hunt, mention agents showing up at dawn, declare total innocence, and pivot to blaming the other team. Since then he has quietly retained a private criminal defense attorney. Who is it? He will not say. Because nothing screams innocence like mystery lawyers.
Then there are the tax returns. On June 19th, Newsom's spokeswoman said the returns were being "prepared for transparency," adding that "unlike Donald Trump, the Governor has nothing to hide." Three weeks later, a reporter had the audacity to ask where those documents actually were. Newsom's response was to get snippy, claim he has released "20 years" of taxes, pivot to Trump again (a man he apparently cannot stop thinking about), and refer to the outstanding documents as "new" tax returns.
The years in question are 2021 through 2025. Those are not new. Those years already happened. The only reason a politician describes completed tax years as "new" is if the version of reality those documents will reflect is still a work in progress.
The actual track record here is not great. Newsom only produced complete returns for 2017 through 2020, and that was because California state law required it for his re-election ballot appearance. He dodged 2021 by filing an extension. California journalists have been getting the Heisman on the remaining years ever since.
The federal investigation is reportedly casting a wide net. Scrutiny extends to Jennifer Siebel Newsom's nonprofits, the Plumpjack wine and hospitality business run by his sister and first cousin, a blind trust managed by his best friend's wife, a $9.1 million Marin County mansion purchased through a family LLC, and a network of nonprofit board members who also happen to be personal friends, business associates, and campaign allies. Federal investigators have been knocking on doors across this entire constellation for months.
Newsom has described the people being visited as "poor and innocent." By his own description of who they are, they are not poor. They are the interconnected financial and political infrastructure of a man who has spent two decades treating the line between personal enrichment and public office like a suggestion.
Hiring a secret defense attorney while stonewalling on five years of tax returns is not the behavior of a man with nothing to hide. It is the behavior of a man doing math.
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