(A)Political - July 4th

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Gavin Newsom’s DOJ investigation took a turn this week as it was revealed that a Newsom insider was wearing a wire as early as of June 2024. A socialist candidate in Colorado defeated a 15 year incumbent in a democratic primary. Speaker Johnson sent colleagues home early after a failure to move forward for the yearly NDAA bill (defense spending).

• CA Gov Faces New Challenges In DOJ Investigation

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• Infighting Over NDAA Bill Causes Early Recess For House Of Representatives

CA Gov Faces New Challenges In DOJ Investigation

_{By: Atlas}

FBI Wire and a Widening Federal Probe Reach Newsom's Inner Circle

The federal corruption investigation that has crept toward California Governor Gavin Newsom took a sharp turn this week, when the attorney for his former chief of staff revealed that a longtime Democratic operative had secretly worn an FBI wire inside the governor's orbit. The disclosure put fresh weight behind a probe Newsom has cast as political payback, and it complicated the picture considerably.

The operative, Alexis Podesta, began recording conversations for the FBI as early as June 2024, according to McGregor Scott, the attorney for former Newsom chief of staff Dana Williamson and himself a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California. "Alexis wore a wire, and Dana did not," Scott said. Podesta has not been charged with a crime.

The Case That Started It

The investigation traces back to Williamson, who ran Newsom's office starting in late 2022 and was long known as the governor's enforcer. In November 2025, the Justice Department announced her indictment and arrest on charges including conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and lying to the FBI. She pleaded guilty in May, and her sentencing is pending.

Prosecutors laid out a scheme centered on a dormant campaign account tied to Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary and now a Democratic frontrunner for California governor. Roughly $225,000 was drained from the account and dressed up as consulting fees meant to benefit Sean McCluskie, Becerra's former chief of staff. Court filings say the money moved from Becerra committees to Podesta's firm, often in $10,000 monthly installments, then through a company controlled by another lobbyist before reaching its destination. Two others, McCluskie and lobbyist Greg Campbell, have also pleaded guilty to related federal charges.

Podesta, 45, inherited much of Williamson's consulting business when Williamson joined the administration, including work on Becerra's campaigns. She has said she did not know the payments were improper. Court records identified her as a co-conspirator, and her attorney, Bill Portanova, confirmed her cooperation with investigators.

A Wire and a Broad Net

The wire helps explain something that had puzzled Sacramento for months. Last fall, the FBI sent letters to numerous Capitol insiders and lobbyists notifying them that their phone calls had been intercepted during the investigation, including some who appeared to have no link to Williamson at all.

Republican Assemblyman Josh Hoover of Folsom was among the recipients, despite never having spoken with either Williamson or Podesta. "A lot of people received letters essentially informing us that there were certain periods of time where the FBI was given access to follow phone calls," Hoover said, describing a probe that seemed to cast "a pretty broad net across the Capitol community." One recipient, according to a source familiar with the matter, was baffled at having gotten a letter without ever meeting Williamson.

One recorded exchange has surfaced in detail. Williamson and Podesta discussed, over text and on a June 2024 call, how to handle a Public Records Act request tied to California's litigation against the video game company Activision Blizzard, with Williamson allegedly sharing confidential state information.

Podesta has drawn her own scrutiny beyond the federal case. California's Fair Political Practices Commission has opened multiple matters involving her, including one tied to a Becerra committee and another alleging she failed to disclose more than $1 million in lobbying income. She remains on the board of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, a Newsom appointment that pays close to $61,000 a year.

Newsom, His Wife, and the Money

In June, Newsom announced that he, his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and members of his inner circle were under federal investigation. He framed it squarely as retaliation by President Trump ahead of a possible 2028 presidential run.

"Donald Trump isn't just coming after me because of my mean tweets," Newsom said. "He's coming after me because I am considering running for president." He added that to reach him, Trump was "coming after my wife," and said agents had been knocking on the doors of family friends and former employees, demanding records and, in his words, abusing the grand jury process. Siebel Newsom said the couple would "continue to speak truth to power," and separately accused Trump of having "no boundaries."

The scrutiny of Siebel Newsom centers on the money flowing through her organizations. She is a documentary filmmaker whose nonprofit, the Representation Project, advocates for gender equity and pays her for-profit company, Girls Club Entertainment, for the films. She also founded the California Partners Project, which works closely with the governor's office and has received nearly $5.1 million in so-called behested payments since 2020. Newsom has disclosed soliciting $4.3 million for the group since that year.

Behested payments, donations made at an official's urging, are legal in California when reported within 30 days, and politicians of both parties have used them, from Jerry Brown to Arnold Schwarzenegger. But they have long struck critics as unseemly. The system drew heightened attention in 2020 when payments solicited by Newsom ballooned to an unprecedented $226 million to fund the state's pandemic response. In November 2025, the FPPC fined Newsom $13,000 for failing to timely disclose more than $14.3 million in behested payments between 2019 and 2024, classifying the lapse as negligent rather than willful.

Two Readings of the Same Facts

How much of this ties back to Newsom himself remains unresolved, and the governor's office has worked to wall off the wire revelation from the separate inquiries into the couple. "There is no evidence that the alleged use of a wire on one of the FBI's informants is in any way connected to the governor," spokeswoman Tara Gallegos said, noting the charges against Williamson concerned conduct predating her time in the administration. Gallegos has also called the Justice Department's effort a "lawless fishing expedition."

Scott, Williamson's attorney, said his client declined to cooperate precisely because she had no information about the governor. Sources familiar with the matter say two separate investigations originated in the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento last year, spurred by whistleblower reports concerning Siebel Newsom's taxes and Williamson. The Williamson case itself began in 2022, under the Biden administration.

Even some observers sympathetic to Newsom concede the arrangements invite examination. Los Angeles Times columnist Anita Chabria noted that behested payments, while legal, have long been seen as unsavory, since a behest is by definition a command or strong suggestion. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, writing in New York Magazine, argued that Trump has earned his status as a permanent suspect in any case touching a disfavored Democrat, but concluded that here, the interconnected organizations and solicited contributions were legitimate fodder for scrutiny, and that neither Newsom nor his wife appeared to be victims.

For now, the facts sit in contested territory. Federal agents are examining the governor, his staff, and his wife's finances; Newsom has turned the investigation into a fundraising rallying cry and a centerpiece of his feud with Trump; and the outcome, whenever it arrives, stands to either wound or bolster his national ambitions. Newsom has said he will release his recent tax returns but has not said when.

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