DOJ Subpoenas Six Years of Newsom Travel Records, Names SF Mayor's Wife in Widening Criminal Probe

A federal criminal investigation into how California Gov. Gavin Newsom's international travel gets funded has widened, with subpoenas now seeking six years of records and naming aides including Rebecca Prowda, the governor's chief protocol officer and wife of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, according to subpoenas reviewed by the San Francisco Standard and published Saturday, September 12.

The subpoenas, issued in early September, target the California State Protocol Foundation, the nonprofit that has covered Newsom's overseas trips using private donations instead of taxpayer money. Prosecutors want records on the foundation's donors and fundraisers, the governor's international travel and events, and money used for his living and personal expenses, the Standard reported.

One subpoena states plainly: "The records requested by this subpoena are for use in a criminal investigation pending in the Eastern District of California." It was signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael D. Anderson. Records collected will go to a grand jury, which decides whether there's enough evidence for an indictment.

Money trail

Since 2019, Newsom has directed more than $7.5 million in outside donations to the Protocol Foundation, according to state records reviewed by The California Post. Roughly $5.1 million of that came from leftover inaugural funds.

Top donors include CVS, a Blue Shield-affiliated foundation, and Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company currently testing robotaxis in San Francisco and other California cities, according to The California Post. Other contributors include the New Venture Fund, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, and foundations linked to Democratic donors Susie Tompkins Buell and Lisa Stone Pritzker, both of whom have also backed nonprofits run by Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

The foundation has covered California governors' official travel for more than two decades and describes itself as nonpartisan. "It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has proudly supported both Republican and Democratic administrations in fulfilling their duties representing all of California through public events and international engagements," the foundation said in a statement carried by The Post Millennial.

What's actually alleged

No charges have been filed against Newsom, Prowda, or anyone else connected to the foundation. SFist, citing the Standard's reporting, noted that being named in a subpoena "does not indicate that someone is the subject of the investigation or that the government believes they have done anything wrong." The subpoenas don't cite a specific alleged crime, though their scope, covering donor identities, gifts, and personal expenses, suggests investigators are examining whether the arrangement amounts to improper gifts or influence peddling.

Companies with business before the state, like CVS and Zoox, funding a governor's personal travel through a private nonprofit is the kind of arrangement that invites scrutiny on its own merits, separate from who's in the White House.

Newsom's response

Newsom's office has called the probe a politically motivated fishing expedition tied to his potential 2028 presidential run. "Governor Newsom went after the king, and as he warned in June, the tyrant is now coming after everyone around him," his office said in a statement. "This is what Donald Trump does to his enemies: investigate first, hunt for a crime that doesn't exist second. It's deeply upsetting to see innocent staff, friends, and family have their names dragged through the mud just because they're associated with the Governor."

Newsom first disclosed the federal probe in June, saying agents had knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees. "Not because they found a crime, but because they simply are trying to find one," he said at the time, according to Mother Jones.

Given President Trump's documented history of pursuing perceived political adversaries, Newsom's suspicion that timing and targeting are political isn't unreasonable on its face. But suspicion of motive doesn't answer the underlying factual question a grand jury is now being asked to weigh: whether donors with business before the state funding a sitting governor's travel and personal expenses crossed a legal line. Those are two separate questions, and neither side gets to resolve the second one by asserting the first.

A separate case that already produced a guilty plea

The travel-funding probe isn't the only legal trouble touching Newsom's former inner circle. Dana Williamson, Newsom's chief of staff until 2024, pleaded guilty in May to bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax form, and lying to FBI agents, according to the Los Angeles Times. Williamson admitted to a 2022-2024 scheme to skim campaign funds from Xavier Becerra, then U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and now a leading candidate for California governor, diverting money to Becerra's then-chief of staff.

Williamson's sentencing, originally set for September 17, is now the subject of a delay request filed by her attorney, McGregor Scott, citing a September 4 surgery following a liver transplant Williamson underwent earlier this year. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California, through spokesperson Lauren Horwood, said it will respond in court filings. That case is legally distinct from the travel-funding probe, but it shows federal prosecutors in the same district have already secured one conviction tied to financial misconduct in Newsom's former administration.

Beyond the Protocol Foundation subpoenas, federal investigators have also examined Jennifer Siebel Newsom's taxes, according to a source cited by The California Post. Whether that inquiry and the travel probe are formally connected hasn't been established publicly. The grand jury process now underway in Sacramento will determine whether any of it produces an indictment, or nothing at all.