Gavin Newsom, the $347 million 'behested gifts' man

www.americanthinker.com

Is California a state or a mafia empire?

In another example of something that is 'legal' in California, but illegal almost everywhere else, California's governor, Gavin Newsom, is the godfather of 'behested gifts.' Those are the shakedown 'gifts' corporations with business before the state make at the request of the governor, in exchange for ... favorable treatment as part of the 'family.'

According to the California Post:

State records show Newsom has solicited more than $340 million in donations from wealthy donors and special interests — some of which have received preferential treatment and millions of dollars in state contracts — while also taking pains to prop up the political activities of his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

A review of state disclosure records shows Newsom has reported 1,325 behested payments totaling $347,240,506 since 2011, when he was serving as lieutenant governor.
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The payments — legal under California law, but a controversial if not illegal practice in some other states — are reported once they hit $5,000 from a single source in a calendar year, and they must be for a charitable, governmental or legislative purpose.

Here's what tells the story:

By comparison, Newsom’s gubernatorial predecessor, Jerry Brown, only solicited $35.5 million in behested payments from 2010 to 2018, according to records held by the Fair Political Practices Commission.

So, no, not everytone does it. Just Newsom. Imagine being a business knowing you'll get shaken down any time you need a favor, and in California, that would be a lot of favors, given the Mojave-hostile parched business environment? Here he comes again ... get out the checkbook, there's the NGO he wants it for over there, the one with its hand out ...

And some of these NGOs are very controversial indeed. One of them is in the NGOs run by Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebert Newsom, whose lifework is to promote the trsoms agenda, at a handsome million-dollar-plus salary which she pays herself from all the cash incoming.

Another, as Spencer Pratt has pointed out, is Fire Aid:

Gavin is suspiciously directing donors and mega corps to funnel money into his connected "nonprofits."
Don't forget...his own agency, Cal Volunteers, has a nonprofit slush fund that was set to launder $500K from FireAid. The entire NPO complex in CA needs to be audited. https://t.co/DTDbZj9uQM pic.twitter.com/whvqOyAwqK
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) June 18, 2026

As if these NGOs weren't sickening enough on their own, but are supercharged with cash directed in by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Fox News host Elizabeth MacDonald tweets that some of the participants include:

NEWS Digging into the data, Gavin Newsom’s behested donations are at well over $250 million during his governorship, with the vast majority coming during the pandemic in 2020. Some recent reports and commentators cite a cumulative figure of more than $340 million in behested…
— Elizabeth MacDonald (@LizMacDonaldFOX) June 17, 2026

Kaiser Permanente⁠ $34.5 million

Facebook (now Meta)⁠ $27 million

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan $3.7 million

YouTube⁠ $500,000

TikTok⁠ $300,000

Netflix⁠ $227,000

Pfizer⁠ $250,000

This certainly explains why we see strange things happening in California's election, such as Chevron giving Newsom's designated successor, Xavier Becerra, lots of campaign cash despite his anti-energy stances. It's probably money laundering, patronage to the godfather. And Becerra will probably be even more pay-to-play than Newsom ever was, now that this kind of corruption is perfectly legal in California.

Which once again, raises the question: Is California a state or a mafia empire?

I think we know the answer.