Federal investigators have spent roughly a year examining how millions of dollars moved into a nonprofit run by California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and whether her husband, Governor Gavin Newsom, used the power of his office to steer those donations from entities with business before the state. The probe, handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento, has not produced charges or formal allegations of wrongdoing. But the financial trail now under scrutiny raises hard questions about a legal donation mechanism that good-government groups on both sides have called a vehicle for legalized influence-peddling.
At the center of the inquiry is the California Partners Project, a Sacramento-based nonprofit Siebel Newsom founded to promote gender equity. Since 2020, the organization has received approximately $5.1 million in so-called "behested payments", donations solicited by public officials for charitable or governmental purposes, which California law requires be disclosed above a $5,000 threshold. That widely cited figure, drawn from campaign finance disclosures, was reported by Newsweek based on Politico's analysis.
The dollar amounts are not abstract. They trace back to specific donors with specific interests in state government.
State records show the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria contributed $500,000 to the California Partners Project in April 2024 and another $500,000 in April 2025, both following requests from Newsom himself. The Washington Free Beacon reported that those donations came around the same time Newsom took action to block a competing tribe's casino, a sequence that prompted Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public's Trust, to call the arrangement "very troubling and likely warrants further investigation by authorities."
Silicon Valley Bank donated $100,000 to the California Partners Project in 2021, spread across four installments of $25,000 each, per public filings. Blue Shield of California Foundation contributed $50,000, and the New Venture Fund gave $100,000, according to New York Post reporting based on nonprofit filings and state data. The New York Post also confirmed that the DOJ has been questioning friends and associates of both the governor and his wife.
None of these donors have been accused of wrongdoing. But the pattern, large sums flowing from regulated entities to the governor's wife's charity at the governor's request, is precisely the kind of arrangement that ethics watchdogs have flagged for years.
Common Cause California has argued behested payments can be used "to curry political favor." The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust has said the system allows elected officials to steer large donations from interests with business before the state, creating at least the appearance of influence.
Newsom has framed the investigation as political retaliation. In a statement posted to X, the governor declared of President Trump: "He hates that I consistently call him out. He is simply the most corrupt President in American history." He described the federal agents' work as a search for records "not because they found a crime, but because they're simply trying to find one," and cast the probe as part of Trump's "hit list" tied to his own presidential ambitions.
That framing has a timing problem. As Just The News detailed, the investigation was originally opened in 2022, under President Biden, and was triggered by multiple whistleblower complaints to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento. The complaints did not originate from Washington, D.C. They came from people close enough to the Newsom orbit to file detailed concerns with local federal prosecutors while a Democratic administration held power.
Newsom has not addressed why whistleblowers in his own backyard initiated the process during a friendly administration. He has instead focused his public statements on Trump.
Reporters have noted the disconnect between Newsom's claim of political targeting and the Biden-era origins of the probe. The Department of Justice declined to comment when Newsweek reached out. The White House pointed the outlet to DOJ.
The California Partners Project is not the only organization in Siebel Newsom's portfolio drawing attention. The Representation Project, another nonprofit focused on media and gender issues, has earned at least $1.5 million in revenue from fees since 2012 by licensing films and curricula to public schools, Fox News reported. Siebel Newsom earns $150,000 per year from The Representation Project, which also pays her private-sector film production company.
Fox News further detailed how Siebel Newsom allegedly used her position as First Partner to push $4.7 billion in state mental health funding that directly benefits The Representation Project. Governor Newsom created the Office of the First Partner in 2019, giving Siebel Newsom nine staffers and nearly $5 million in taxpayer funding to promote her policy agenda. Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open The Books, described the arrangement bluntly:
"The Newsoms might consider their legalized pay-to-play scheme a virtuous circle. In fact, it's a model of endless mutual benefit for the friends and members of Newsom, Inc., that's paid for by taxpayers."
The Representation Project also operated while out of compliance with California state regulations, filing corrective paperwork only on the same day Fox News Digital published its initial report on the matter.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that since 2020, Siebel Newsom received approximately $760,000 in salary plus $773,000 paid to her private LLC from The Representation Project, potentially over $1.5 million in personal income flowing from a charity-funded operation. Siebel Newsom has pushed back publicly against the DOJ probe, but the financial connections between her nonprofits and her private production company remain a focus of the federal inquiry.
California law permits elected officials to ask individuals or organizations to donate money to nonprofits or public causes for "legislative, governmental or charitable purposes." The payments must be disclosed if they exceed $5,000. Beyond that, the system operates largely on the honor principle, and the honor principle, in Sacramento, has produced some striking results.
Newsom has solicited over $340 million in behested payments since 2011, Just The News reported. Of that sum, $4.4 million went to his wife's California Partners Project. The governor directed donations from a regulated tribe, a state-connected health insurer's foundation, a now-collapsed bank, and a dark-money fund, all to a charity run by the woman he goes home to at night.
Steve Hilton, a Republican running for governor in 2026, put it plainly. He described behested payments as "literally corruption in plain sight."
That phrase captures the frustration of Californians who watch their state's political class operate within rules that would be unrecognizable in most other states. The payments are legal. The disclosures are public. And the result is a system where a governor can direct a million dollars from a tribe with a pending casino dispute to his wife's nonprofit, and call it charity.
CNN reported that federal investigators approached people connected to the governor and his wife, including friends, former employees, and affiliated organizations, seeking records. The probes focus in part on Siebel Newsom's finances, including tax-related issues and nonprofit activity. The precise scope of the tax questions has not been disclosed.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor who provided previous comments to Newsweek, noted that Newsom's political-retaliation defense was predictable:
"Obviously, regardless of what it is, Gavin Newsom is going to argue this is a vindictive prosecution."
Rahmani also said the DOJ has no requirement to disclose details of an ongoing investigation, meaning clarity may take considerable time. No charges have been filed. No formal allegations of wrongdoing have been made against Siebel Newsom or the California Partners Project.
But the investigation continues. And the money trail, in a pattern familiar from other federal probes of Democratic officials, runs through a system designed to make large-scale influence look like philanthropy.
Newsom has built a national brand on fighting corruption and holding the powerful accountable. He has positioned himself as a potential presidential candidate. He has loudly accused the current administration of lawlessness.
Meanwhile, his own office created a taxpayer-funded position for his wife, who runs nonprofits that receive millions solicited by her husband from entities regulated by his administration, and who personally earns a salary and production fees from one of those nonprofits. The investigation into these arrangements started under a Democratic president, prompted by whistleblowers, not by political opponents.
Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told the Washington Free Beacon: "While the Newsoms' hypocrisy is unsurprising, it does raise questions about what they may be hiding."
Newsom's office and the California Partners Project did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment sent early Tuesday morning.
When the man who lectures the country about corruption can't explain why whistleblowers in his own state capital flagged his wife's finances to federal prosecutors, during his own party's watch, the lecture loses its force.