Newsom has kept his returns private as his wife rakes in hundreds of thousands of dollars from her charity, which is funded by corporations that do business with Newsom’s California
California governor Gavin Newsom made a bold pledge as he campaigned for his first term in 2017: He would release his tax returns to the public every year he serves in office, a move the Democrat described as the “moral duty” of “leaders seeking the highest offices.” Now, with less than a year remaining in his second term and a looming 2028 presidential campaign on the horizon, Newsom’s last five tax returns are nowhere to be seen.
Newsom said in 2019 that disclosing his returns would deter allegations of “conflicts of interest, self-dealing, or influence from domestic or foreign business interests.” News outlets like the Sacramento Bee praised the governor for setting a “standard of transparency” that could one day propel him to higher office.
Seven years later, Newsom is setting the stage for a White House bid in 2028 but hasn’t released tax returns since his reelection campaign in 2022, when he released his 2020 tax return.
Newsom’s pledge to release his taxes in 2017 was widely seen as a dig against President Donald Trump, who had refused to release his taxes during his 2016 campaign, saying they were under audit by the IRS. Presidential candidates are not legally required to release their tax returns to the public, but Trump’s refusal to do so broke decades of political precedent and prompted intense criticism from the left. In 2020, the New York Times obtained Trump’s tax returns dating back two decades. Two years later, when Democrats controlled the House, the Ways and Means Committee also released Trump’s taxes following a years-long legal battle that ended up in the Supreme Court, which rejected his efforts to block the release of his records.
The California governor’s apparent abandonment of his “transparency” pledge could follow the California governor as he runs for president. In addition to his own vow to release returns, Newsom in 2019 signed a bill requiring presidential and California gubernatorial candidates to disclose the last five years of their taxes to appear on the ballot, legislation intended to force President Donald Trump to release his returns. Newsom said at the time that releasing returns would “ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal standards” and “restore public confidence.” While he complied with the bill while running for reelection in 2022, he is now violating the spirit of his own bill.
“Gavin Newsom made a show of promising to disclose his tax returns in order to criticize the president,” the executive director of the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust, Caitlin Sutherland, told the Washington Free Beacon. “However, he’s failed to turn over any returns for years, coinciding with growing scrutiny about Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s ties to her charities and accusations of self-enrichment. While the Newsoms’ hypocrisy is unsurprising, it does raise questions about what they may be hiding.”
Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, has raked in upwards of $1.5 million since 2020 from the Representation Project, her film production charity that combats “intersectional gender stereotypes.” The nonprofit is funded by companies that have received millions of California taxpayer dollars from Newsom’s administration, including utilities behemoth PG&E and telecommunications giant Comcast, according to the Daily Mail. The nonprofit also generates revenue via licensing agreements with public schools in California. The exact amount Siebel Newsom has earned from her charity cannot be determined without Newsom’s tax returns: The Representation Project has paid Siebel Newsom $760,000 in direct salary payments since 2020 and an additional $773,000 to her private production firm, Girls Club Entertainment LLC, which is not required to publicly disclose how much of which was distributed to Siebel Newsom.
She does not appear to need the money: Siebel Newsom is “the beneficiary of a multi-million-dollar trust from her wealthy family,” according to the Daily Mail.
Newsom’s wealth was the focus of media coverage following his purchase of a swanky $9 million Bay Area mansion equipped with a spa, several walk-in closets, outdoor sculptures, and a guest house as he failed to follow through on his pledge to release his tax returns to the public. The couple bought the home in 2024 through an LLC, the San Francisco Standard reported.
California media last questioned Newsom about his missing tax returns shortly after the purchase of his Bay Area mansion. Newsom’s office told CalMatters in November 2024 that his office would organize an opportunity for reporters to review his latest tax filings, but it doesn’t appear that event ever transpired.
Newsom’s office did not return a request for comment.
The Trump-inspired transparency measure Newsom championed did not compel Trump to release his returns, as California’s Supreme Court struck down the provision related to presidential candidates. The measure does, however, compel California gubernatorial candidates to supply their returns to the California secretary of state’s office, which publishes the returns online for public consumption. Newsom sidestepped the law when he campaigned against the California gubernatorial recall election in 2021 because he was not technically a “candidate” on the ballot. Before then, Newsom had not publicly released his returns—instead, he gave reporters a limited amount of time to review the filings and did not allow them to take photographs.
In addition to her film production charity, Siebel Newsom runs a “gender equality” nonprofit, the California Partners Project, that has Newsom to thank for much of its budget. Newsom has directed organizations with business in California to donate more than $4.4 million to the nonprofit, according to the state’s “behested payments” database, which records instances in which companies or individuals donate to a charity at the request of an elected official in the state. Those businesses include Graton Rancheria, a Native American tribe in Northern California that donated $1 million to the California Partners Project at Newsom’s request around the same time the governor fought to block Graton Rancheria’s rival tribe from opening a new casino near one of its own, the Free Beacon reported.
Siebel Newsom doesn’t collect a salary from the California Partners Project, but it works closely with her government office and is a key cog in her campaign to force gender equity in corporate boards.
Read the full article here
