Newsom says Justice Department is investigating him and his wife

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Justice Department is investigating him and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, putting his long-running feud with President Donald Trump back at the center of national politics. In a video posted to X on Monday, Newsom said federal agents had recently sought to speak to family, friends and former employees, demanded records and gone through years of documents.

Newsom said it remained unclear what he and his wife were being investigated for, but he accused the Justice Department under Trump of “abusing the grand jury process.” He said federal agents had knocked on doors of family friends and former employees, and that the effort had reached his own home. Newsom also said investigators were targeting Jennifer Siebel Newsom, whom he described as a public servant and the mother of his children.

The governor’s office said federal agents have questioned friends and associates of the couple. Newsom cast the inquiry as politically motivated and tied it to his consideration of a presidential run, saying Trump had directed the Justice Department to investigate him. The allegation immediately raised the stakes for a governor who has become one of Trump’s most visible Democratic adversaries.

Newsom widened the accusation into what he described as a broader pattern of Trump using federal power against political enemies. He named New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as other figures he said had been targeted.

The clash between Trump and Newsom has already played out across several fronts, including climate change, pipelines and Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to California last summer. In June 2025, Newsom sued the Trump administration over the federalization and deployment of the California National Guard during immigration-related protests in Los Angeles, a legal fight that deepened the conflict between Sacramento and Washington. The latest accusation adds a federal criminal investigation claim to a dispute that has increasingly shaped Newsom’s national profile.