(Jan. 21) A report this week involving California Gov. and first lady Gavin and Jennifer Seibel Newsom raises the question of how many scandals can be wrapped up in a single story. What will be still more scandalous is if the establishment media doesn’t cover the revelations as a scandal.
The multi-faceted report comes from a non-profit called Open The Books, which publicizes spending by every level of government, exposing profligacy and malfeasance by liberals and conservatives alike. OTB’s new report on the Newsoms details (by my count) at least six things that are so seriously objectionable as to be either arguably or, in one case, indisputably characterizable as scandals.
Seibel Newsom, a former actress, is a documentary film maker and social-political activist. Her “non-profit,” the Representation Project, and her for-profit Girls Club both do projects pushing decidedly leftist cultural and political narratives and agendas. And both of those entities pay large salaries to her, with the former paying the latter for “production costs,” so she gets two bites at the apple for the same “non-profit” work.
People of reasonable standards and ethics will consider all of the following elements of both Jennifer and Gavin Newsom’s activities to be scandalous. (And no, this has nothing to do with Gavin Newsom’s flamboyant and sometimes adulterous sexcapades or with Jennifer’s role as one of the very believable accusers in the serial-rape case against director Harvey Weinstein.)
I list the scandals below in logical order of how they build upon each other, not in order of the seriousness of the normative and perhaps even legal transgressions….
For the Newsoms, it’s a nice arrangement: Lobbyists and other favor-seekers who might have maxed out on campaign contributions to the governor can get even more in his good graces by donating to his wife’s “charity,” all while rubbing shoulders with the California first couple at the charity’s fundraising galas…. [PLEASE read this whole column, because the scope of the outright corruption, not to mention outrageous cultural standards, really is astonishing. The full column is at this link.]
