Some refer to it as a bailout.
What Newsom failed to reveal is that he has been a customer of the bankrupt regional bank, and that three of his winery businesses have had accounts there, according to The Intercept:
“Odette, CADE, and PlumpJack, three of Newsom’s wineries, are mentioned as SVB clients on the bank’s website. According to a former staffer of Newsom’s who managed his finances and asked anonymity, Newsom also maintained personal accounts at SVB for years.”
When Newsom won the governorship, he transferred his enterprises to a blind trust, which was conveniently managed by a family friend who is an attorney and his sister. When Trump became president, he made a similar move by delegating company operations to his sons.
It appears that officials should not be required to give up their entire life’s work when they entered office—but it must be guaranteed that their political agendas do not become interwoven with their business riches.
According to the California Globe, SVB CEO of Capital John China is on the board of Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s gender-equity group, the “California Partners Project.” Not only that, but the SV Bank was quite generous to her group, according to the transparency website Openthebooks.org:
“Our OpenTheBooks.com auditors discovered that Governor Newsom, through a charity and nonprofit group created by his wife, Jennifer, called the CA. Partners Project, has close ties to the financial institution.”
“In 2021, SVB donated $100,000 to the Newsom nonprofit group. These donations are sufficiently linked with Newsom’s that they are classified as a violation of California ethics law on the CA. Fair Political Practices website.”
“If they are “behested” gifts, all nonprofit money donors are reported on the official state website. The phrase “behested” means actions taken “at the suggestion or solicitation or cooperation with a public authority.”
Last year, Newsom received $23.7 million in these behested gifts from certain groups.
There is no smoking gun at this point, but Gavin Newsom’s deep ties to this collapsed bank, as well as the “behested” financial gifts to his wife’s non-profit, are troubling.
