Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) has spent years positioning himself for a presidential run. Had Biden not chosen to seek a second term, Newsom most likely would have tried in 2024, but clearly, 2028 is the year he intends to make it happen. He’s essentially admitted as much now. The weird thing about what he’s doing is that he’s trying to stand out in the clown car of Democrat hopefuls by emulating Donald Trump. The problem is that it isn’t working.
The most common way he’s been trying to become the left's version of Donald Trump is via social media. The trolling, the swagger, the constant social media stunts — none of it has worked the way he hoped. Now Newsom is reaching for the ultimate piece of Trump cosplay, playing the victim of a political witch hunt.
There is a catch. The timeline of his own accusation collapses his story before he even finishes telling it. So why is he telling it anyway?
Newsom is now accusing Trump's Justice Department of running a "politically motivated fishing expedition" against him. It is his latest attempt to borrow Trump's playbook, and it might be his most embarrassing one yet because the investigation Newsom is complaining about did not start under Trump's Justice Department at all.
At least two criminal investigations tied to Newsom's orbit have been underway for about a year in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California. According to a Justice Department source, those investigations originated with whistleblowers and local complaints in Sacramento, not with a Washington-directed vendetta.
One of those inquiries involved former Newsom chief of staff Dana Williamson. And here’s the kicker: it was opened during the Biden administration.
CBS News, Axios, the Financial Times, and The Guardian have separately reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that at least one federal inquiry began roughly a year ago and originated in California rather than at Justice Department headquarters in Washington. Four outlets, four confirmations, zero evidence of a Trump-ordered hit job.
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Newsom insists the current Justice Department expanded or politicized the investigations in retaliation for his criticism of Trump and his rising national profile.
Make no mistake about it, Newsom doesn’t know what actual lawfare looks like. Trump does. He lived through years of it under the Biden administration and a parade of Soros-funded district attorneys who tried to bury him in indictments to keep him from returning to the Oval Office. It backfired spectacularly, and voters rewarded him for it.
Newsom apparently thinks he can borrow that same grievance and turn it into a 2028 rallying cry. Claiming victim status for an investigation that started before his alleged persecutor even took office takes some nerve. The 2028 Democrat Party primary will be crowded, and Newsom knows he needs to stand out by pretending to be the candidate Trump and the entire GOP fear most. He knows his record won't get him across the finish line, so he's writing his own mythology instead.
