Breaking News from Pod Save America - Gavin Newsom SLAMS Trump After DOJ Targets His Wife

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Gavin Newsom is firing back after the Trump's DOJ reportedly targeted his wife in a new DOJ investigation. Alex Wagner is joined by Leah Litman, host of Strict Scrutiny, to break down the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. The weaponization of the federal government, the actual witch hunt for enemies of the president, kicked into a new low gear today as California governor Gavin Newsom announced that the Justice Department is now investigating his family, more specifically his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Here's a clip. Donald Trump isn't just coming after me because of my mean tweets. He's coming after me because I'm considering running for president because he's

hates that I've consistently called him out over and over again for his lies and deceit. Donald Trump is simply the most corrupt president in American history. One by one, anyone who has challenged Donald Trump has ended up on his hit list. And today, I proudly join that list. Okay, so the governor and his wife are being investigated. We don't know the charges. But man, there is a lot to unpack here. to do that, I am joined by the great Leah Littman, host of the Essential Podcast. Strict scrutiny right here on Crooked, Leah.

Thanks for joining me this afternoon to cover this really, truly breaking news. Yeah, I feel like the last time we were talking was also about another politically vindictive investigation and prosecution. So I don't know if this is like our bat signal at this point. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Indeed. Okay. So like I said, we don't know the charges yet. some of this revolves around the governor's wife and her nonprofits. I think the California Partners Project and the Representation Project, which focus on gender equity and education

initiatives, stuff that the Trump administration doesn't like education and gender equity. We'll get into sort of past history on the Newsoms and Trump and the IRS and these two organizations in a second. But first, what was your initial reaction to hearing the governor's announcement? I mean, the initial reaction was, this is more of the same. We have seen so many efforts, ham-handed efforts, at these politically vindictive investigations and prosecutions, whether it is the repeated attempts to indict Jim Comey, Letitia James, whether it is the efforts to go after, you know, Senator Schiff or Lisa Cook, governor of the Federal Reserve Board, or Jerome Powell, you know, former chair of the Federal Reserve

Board, et cetera, et cetera. And so it just doesn't seem like Donald Trump has at all been deterred from attempting to do more of these politically vindictive investigations and prosecutions, even though many of them have gone down in flames, including, you know, the Broadview Six case that just exploded and imploded in their faces. And this just seems like Todd Blanche is more than willing to give it a go and try to do this all over again. Yeah. And unlike, I will say, the thing that separates the newsomes from, for example, Tish James or Jim Comey and maybe even Adam Schiff is he is definitely a 2028 presidential prospect, which is where the sort of political dimensions of this are particularly relevant, right? Yeah. And it reminds me actually of like

one of the impeachment proceedings, right, when Donald Trump attempted to manufacture dirt on a political opponent by effectively coercing Vladimir Zelensky into suggesting. that the Bidens had engaged in some criminal illicit wrongdoing. So we know he is not unwilling or above attempting to target political rivals in addition to people who have, you know, attempted to enforce the law against him. And to really go for the soft matter, which is their families, right? Like for for Biden, it was Hunter Biden, his only surviving son from his first marriage. And for Governor Newsom, it's his wife. And, And I don't think we have the sound, but if you watch the video of the governor's announcement

of this investigation, at the end, he delivers a message to his wife and he almost, he gets emotional, right? He says, he apologizes to his wife publicly as if to say, I know I brought, not I know, but to suggest that, you know, his public ambitions have brought this pox that is called Trump and his DOJ to her doorstep. So let's just actually talk about her involvement here because there was an IRS investigation back in March of this year, which looked at the sort of finances of Jennifer Newsom's nonprofits. She used a third of the nonprofits funding to pay herself and fund another company. The payments totaled $3.7 million for the 11 years going between 2012 and 23.

and critics, which is to say the far right internet, has cited IRS records that show she already receives a salary of $150,000 from her nonprofit, the representation project. Going after charity, like the way in which charities fund and pay their executives is a tale as old as time, Leah, but what do you, I mean, what do you, what do you make of that? and sort of where would you guess this investigation is heading? So I guess two things.

One is it's possible that this just stays an investigation because investigations themselves are already time intensive, expensive, laborious. And so even if this doesn't materialize into, let's say, civil litigation against the nonprofit or the Newsom's or criminal charges against an organization or the Newsom's, they are still going to have to take time in order to comply with any of these federal investigative arrests. They're going to have to retain lawyers and whatnot. You know, again, we have seen Donald Trump's administration attempt to do this elsewhere, you know, whether it is raiding the Ohio Voting Rights Organization, whether it is attempting

to subpoena and harass hospitals that provide gender affirming care. So the investigation, you know, it might not be a prosecution so much as a persecution, and that itself, right, is concerning. The idea that the Trump administration is concerned with compliance, with non-profit laws and ethical guidelines about compensating executives is so absurd as to be laughable. I mean, again, if you're thinking about in the event that the Newsombs are charged or the organization is charged and they want to make a claim of vindictive prosecution, I mean, part of that is going to say, this is an administration that has completely turned its face in real accusations of public corruption and fraud and pardoned a bunch of fraudsters, pardon people, right, who were convicted of crimes but supported Donald Trump's super PACs and MAGA World.

So it's just absurd to think that this is remotely a concern about the enforcement of, you know, nonprofit law, public corruption law, rather than just an effort to go after the newsome's. Yeah, and I would point everybody who's interested in the depths of Trumpian corruption to look at last week's episode of Runaway Country where we get into the scandal that's unfolding at the Department of Defense where the Trump family is literally using the federal agency with the deepest coffers as their own private piggy bank. If you're talking about people who are dipping in to the funds of places they shouldn't have their noses, look no further than Donald Trump Jr., who has basically found the Pentagon to be a very lucrative project for all of the bullshit companies

he sits on the boards of. It is a joke that the Trump administration would be concerned with things at the Newsom charity being on the up and up, and whether or not someone of, you know, significant stature is using funds in, you know, in untoward factors. Like just look inside your own family at your own administration. I mean, look at the weaponization fund where he attempted to give himself $2 billion in taxpayer money to distribute as he wanted to. Or stories that $50 billion in government contracts went to companies that contributed to Donald Trump's ballroom. Again, they do not give two shits about, you know, pay to play or people compensating themselves. out of like donations or the public fisc, they view that as their entitlement.

And it is just so clear this is a transparent effort to weaponize the considerable law enforcement powers of the federal government against someone who Donald Trump views as a political rival and threat. Yeah. And like to your point, it doesn't actually need to be an indictment. It can just be the investigation because the point is to smear someone's reputation. I will say, though, I don't think they succeeded with Jim Comey. I don't think they're succeeding with Tish James.

I don't think they're succeeding with Adam Schiff. And not only do I not think that, you increasingly see the courts, whether it's the judges or the grand jury, saying, this is a fucking goat rodeo. Give me a break. The New York Times has been reporting on the degree to which federal judges

who once would give the government the benefit of doubt when they would bring charges are increasingly skeptical. Grand juries, which notoriously can indict ham sandwiches, are like, the ham sandwich has more credibility than you, Todd Blanche. I mean, is your,

I guess, first of all, what damage does this continued assault on actual rule of law do in the broader sort of legal landscape? And what's your expectation with this? Yeah, I mean, so we actually talked about this on the most recent episode of strict scrutiny about how all of their efforts to just pervert the Department of Justice are undermining the actual enforcement of laws because as you're suggesting, grand jurors and judges can't take seriously anything the administration and now the Department of Justice are. saying, whether it's in high-profile cases or not. You know, after the Broadview Six case went down in flames, there are now inquiries into at least two other cases out of Chicago involving the same prosecutors. This was a problem in New Jersey when, you know, Donald Trump appointed Alina Hava, and then there was an uncertain structure governing the office with judges basically begging the Department of Justice to sort out their house so that they were not jeopardizing

every single criminal case coming out of that office. So they are, are absolutely undermining the credibility and stature of Department of Justice, federal prosecutors as an institution. And they have squandered, you know, more than a century of credibility in 18 months to the point where, you know, you have grand jurors in the Broadview Six case telling the prosecutor, I think your case is a crock of shit. Like, why are you still at this? So, yes, they are doing considerable damage to institutions while they are, you know, just abusing them so badly. I will say it is a good thing that the courts have acted as the bulwark because it is just to shade off Putin and Navalny, Orban, and to some degree, Magyar. I mean, you see this in autocratic

regimes where prominent members of the resistance or the opposition are systematically targeted by the ruling autocrat and tried to, you know, an attempted mud dragging ensues, right? And I don't think that's going to happen here, not just because the DOJ has to be clowned itself, but also because we, you know, the system of checks and balances is holding a little bit better than it as in other places, but also because I think Gavin Newsom has learned a lesson from Jerome Powell, which is the minute they go after you, get on the internet, establish the real narrative, and fight like hell. I feel like this is the new playbook,

and I actually feel like I'm hopeful that it can be effective. I am also hopeful it can be effective. You know, as you were saying, Jerome Powell immediately, you know, kind of grabbed the mic and said he is targeting me because I refuse to lower interest rates as he wants. The investigation into Powell, you know,

ended in part because Republican senators held the line. You know, they said we're not going to confirm anyone else to the governor of the Federal Reserve Board unless and until you stop this bullshit investigation into Jerome Powell. I think it's right that the system is holding and does hold, but I do think it's important to underscore two things. One is some cases do slip through.

Representative La Monica McIver, for example, who is a Democratic congressional representative in New Jersey is still facing prison time for the act of attempting to exercise oversight and conduct a visitation, a visit to inspect the conditions at an immigration detention facility. And even if this doesn't materialize into indictment, you know, they're going to have to spend a ton of money on these lawyers that's going to distract them. And those are costs that just can't be recovered if and when, you know, a grand jury refuses to indict or a judge dismisses the charges. And I just don't want people to lose sight of those costs that he is imposing and meeting out, you know, in these cases.

And I will say there is a psychic cost of having your wife improve. particular dragged through this, right? We talk about how, you know, people in the age of Trump who are direct targets often find themselves cowed by his threats or, you know, they slink into the shadows. I don't think that happens, that certainly happens on the right side of the aisle, not so much at the left. But the personal nature of this and the vulnerability of his wife who is not a political figure, she's just his spouse, it's the kind of thing that discourages other people from running or other spouses from encouraging their spouse. is to run. And that is

an intolerable cost of these Trump years, right? That we are losing potentially good people to this madness because this this, well, the adult commander-in-chief has decided to personally target the most vulnerable people in political families, and that is

totally fucking shameful. Yeah, it is. Leah Littman, you're the best, offering clarity and wisdom a couple of four-letter words to boot in this rapid response video we are deeply appreciative of you and all you do and you and the ladies

on strict scrutiny are my go-to for all matters legal and otherwise. Thank you for joining us today. Everybody who is not subscribing to this channel and the strict scrutiny channel, please do so because this is the kind of hot shit you get on the regular. We love you all. Go in peace.

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