Newsom Says Trump's Justice Dept. Is Investigating Him and His Wife

California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that the Justice Department is investigating him and his wife, and accused President Donald Trump of ordering it, escalating a feud between the White House and the Democrat widely seen as a likely 2028 presidential contender.

“Trump has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us,” Newsom said, referring to his wife, the filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom. In recent days, he said, federal agents had knocked on the doors of his friends and former employees and asked for records “not because they found a crime, but because they’re simply trying to find one.” Trump, he added, is “coming after me because I’m considering running for president.”

The picture is more tangled than either side’s framing. A person familiar with the matter confirmed multiple federal inquiries touching people around Newsom, including one into his wife’s taxes. But the same account indicates the investigations began last year, after whistleblower complaints inside California’s state government, and that political leadership in Washington was not involved in opening them. That timeline complicates the claim of a presidential directive, even as the probes now advance under a Trump Justice Department.

The dispute lands in a charged moment. Democrats have accused the administration of bending the Justice Department toward Trump’s adversaries, a charge the White House denies. Newsom, term-limited as governor and increasingly national in profile, has cast himself as one of Trump’s sharpest antagonists, which gives both men reasons to amplify a fight like this one.

The two men have circled each other for years. Newsom built much of his national profile on opposing Trump, sparring over immigration, disaster aid and federal funding, and has spent recent months visiting early primary states in all but name. Trump, for his part, has named Newsom repeatedly as a foil. An investigation that Newsom can cast as political persecution, and that the administration can call a routine inquiry, fits neatly into both of their stories.

For now, what is established is narrow: investigations exist, at least one touches the governor’s wife’s taxes, and they predate the public clash. What is contested is everything that matters politically, who ordered them, why, and whether a sitting president is steering the Justice Department against a rival. The department, which has said little, will be pressed to say more.