The Clinton Playbook Comes to Sacramento
A federal investigation suggests Gavin Newsom and his wife may have perfected what the Clintons pioneered
California Democrats are acting shocked — shocked! — that Gavin Newsom and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom are reportedly the targets of a federal criminal investigation.
Please. California Democrats had front row seats the last time this movie was in theaters.
And the plot is the same as you remember it.
Big elected official. Supporting spouse with a “charity” nonprofit. Corporations with hundreds of millions of dollars of business before the government writing donations to that nonprofit.
A pattern of government contracts and regulatory actions sprinkled throughout that just so happen to benefit the entities writing the checks.
Welcome to the Clinton Cash Playbook.
Over Hillary Clinton’s four years as Secretary of State, her husband’s Clinton Foundation raised enormous sums of money from individuals, corporations, and foreign governments who were seemingly rewarded with access.
Private citizens who met with Clinton were overwhelmingly donors to the Clinton Foundation or had pledged donations to the charity worth up to $156 million, according to an AP review.
Foreign governments that donated up to $170 million also received access. Saudi Arabia. Qatar. Algeria. Over $26 million was donated by companies that actively lobbied the State Department.
Foundation donors sold arms to the United States totaling roughly $165 billion while Hillary served as Secretary of State.
Almost all of that money stopped flowing the moment Hillary Clinton left office in 2016 and no longer had sway over anything that could be bought for access. Critics considered that timeline the most damning piece of evidence.
Now cut to Sacramento.
Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, founded the nonprofit “gender equity” and media organization The Representation Project in 2011. Between founding the organization and 2021, Siebel Newsom’s organization paid herself about $150k annually, plus another $150k per year to her production company Girls Club Entertainment LLC, according to IRS filings.
That comes to a whopping $3.8 million from The Representation Project flowing directly to the Newsom family bank account.
None of that is illegal by itself, unfortunately.
But then there’s the donors.
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), California’s taxpayer-funded, wildfire-incinerating monopoly currently held under state regulatory control amid ongoing criminal prosecutions paid between $290k and $358k to Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit. In 2021 alone, California kicked PG&E $323.8 million.
Telephone giant AT&F donated just under $185k between 2017 and 2020, and also gave to Newsom’s inauguration. California taxpayers gave AT&T $260 million in telecom services contracts that year.
Kaiser Permanente donated $20k, and receives state contracts many, many times that amount, including a recently reported $500 million sole-source pandemic field hospital contract.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s second nonprofit, the California Partners Project, reveals another wrinkle unique to California law. California refers to these as “behested payments,” donations made at the request or suggestion of a government official to a third-party organization.
Contributions like these from Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, a California tribal government that has gaming compacts with the state, totaled more than $1 million. Silicon Valley Bank gave $100k. It’s the same playbook.
And Newsom has made the same claim as Hillary Clinton before him when faced with these types of accusations: “there’s no correlation.”
If there’s one thing we know about the Clintons and campaign finance, it’s that every officeholder ensnared by this scheme says the same thing.
The defense they offer is also nearly identical every time: these are perfectly legal charitable donations that fulfill needs the government can’t or won’t meet. How dare you insinuate otherwise?
It’s the correlation prosecutors and the public are interested in.
Would PG&E, AT&T, Kaiser Permanente — or really, any company with hundreds of millions of dollars of business in California — be writing donations to the spouse of the state’s chief executive to a nonprofit supporting gender equity in media if Gavin Newsom was not governor of California? Of course not.
Nobody is coming onto Twitter to praise Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentaries. They’re corporations with billions of dollars at stake in decisions happening in her husband’s office.
The Clintons proved that if you’re looking for a way to operate in the gray areas of campaign finance and corruption laws, a nonprofit organized by your spouse is the perfect vehicle.
They can accept unlimited donations without the same scrutiny or disclosure requirements of a campaign contribution.
Foundations do charitable work, so money given to them can be framed as purely philanthropic.
And then you can write yourself and your family six-figure checks as compensation for “work” performed by those nonprofits without running into some of the legal pitfalls you might if the money went straight to your pocket.
How prosecutors intend to prove there was an explicit quid pro quo — required for a criminal conviction — remains to be seen.
That is a high bar, and it has allowed a lot of guilty people off the hook for far less. But Americans don’t need to serve on a jury to understand what is going on here. We don’t need proof beyond reasonable doubt. We’ve read this story.
Create your spouse’s nonprofit before you run for office. Court corporations that do business with your state government. Slide family members checks from the nonprofit. When questioned about the relationship, tout your advocacy and deny any coordination.
If the feds come knocking, pose for photos with goofy sunglasses and remind everyone you’re fighting Donald Trump.
The Newsoms are about to find out that this isn’t fooling anyone, least of all the FBI.
Robert J. Hutchinson is the author of numerous books of popular history, including Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth (Thomas Nelson), The Dawn of Christianity (Thomas Nelson), The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible (Regnery) and When in Rome: A Journal of Life in Vatican City (Doubleday). Email him at: roberthutchinson@substack.com