Gavin Newsom would have probably been happy to be king/governor of California for the rest of his political career. Thanks to term limits, the rest of the country is likely to get a hefty dose of Governor Hair Gel very shortly.

However, Newsom is carrying around a LOT of baggage – French Laundry, anyone? – along with his final boss level AWFL wife Jennifer. I don’t think that we have fully comprehended yet just how big and vicious and bitter the 2028 Democrat primary battle is going to become. With Donald Trump no longer on the ballot for the first time since 2016, the Democrats will not only be unleashed, but untethered. They will be looking for the next worst Republican ever, and their long struggle against Trump is going to undermine not just their political argument, but also their collective sanity. What will they do when the Bad Orange Man is no longer the boogeyman, after they have insisted and sworn that he was the Worst Person Alive for over a decade? Trump is unique, and it will be instantly obvious the second the Republican primary begins that no one will be able to take his place in either the political or pop culture sphere. How, then, will the Democrats be able to go back to their old playbook of the current Republican is now worse than the last Republican? We saw this with George W. Bush, we saw this with McCain, we saw this with Romney. The longevity of their fight with Trump, and the public’s collective memory of it, may yet be their undoing.

But back to Newsom. In the midst of all his virtue signaling when he was running for governor in 2017, he tried to score political points by pledging to release his own tax records. This was in the midst of Trump not releasing his (anyone remember that, now?) during the 2016 election. Well, now Newsom is about to leave office and ramp up a presidential run, and his tax records are missing from public view.

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.

Huh. I wonder why no tax records since 2020 have been released. I mean, it’s not like Newsom had COVID policies that didn’t affect his businesses at certain times, or took bailout money after lobbying the Biden administration to save the Silicon Valley Bank when it collapsed in 2023. After all, we were told that if you had nothing to hide, then you would WANT people to be able to see your tax statements! Newsom even signed a law in 2019 stating that presidential candidates needed to release their tax statements in order to be on the ballot in California!

Now, Newsom hasn’t officially declared that he is running for president in 2028, even though it is painfully obvious that he intends to do so. Therefore, he can reasonably claim that he isn’t violating California law when it comes to presidential candidates… just his own campaign pledge from when he ran for governor.

“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.

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.

Seems the shoe on the other foot might be a teensy bit painful for Gavin and Jennifer if they have to disclose just how much money they have, and the virtue signaling is going to come back around to bite him squarely in the ass the second he announces his candidacy. So, what will he do? He could attempt to brazen it out like Trump did, but then he’s caught in the hypocrisy trap of his own making. And there is no way that other Democrats in the presidential primary will let him ignore his previous campaign pledges or his own law. This is why those 2028 primary battles are going to be an all-out brawl. Every single Democrat candidate will be unleashing opposition files on their competition in order to claim the nomination for themselves. Get the popcorn ready, because if you thought 2016 and 2020 were a political bloodbath, 2028 is likely to blow all of us away.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click