A California state lawmaker has formally asked two oversight bodies to investigate Governor Gavin Newsom for allegedly using taxpayer-funded staff and official letterhead to file a personal Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Department of Justice, a move the Republican assemblyman says violates state law.
Assemblyman Carl DeMaio of San Diego filed a letter with the Fair Political Practices Commission and California Attorney General Rob Bonta requesting the probe. His complaint centers on a FOIA request Newsom submitted to the DOJ the day before, seeking records related to a federal investigation into the governor and his wife, Jennifer Seibel Newsom.
The core question is straightforward: Did Newsom use the machinery of state government to handle what amounts to a private legal matter? DeMaio says the evidence points that way. Newsom's office says the whole thing is a politically motivated distraction.
Newsom filed the FOIA request with the DOJ on Monday, as The Center Square first reported. The request sought information about the federal investigation into Newsom and his wife. What drew DeMaio's attention was not the filing itself but the fingerprints on it.
DeMaio told The Center Square via email that the FOIA letter bore the hallmarks of official state business rather than a private citizen's inquiry.
"We are led to believe taxpayer-funded resources may have been used as the FOIA request was sent from the office of the Governor, on official letterhead, and written by the legal affairs secretary of the Office of the Governor."
That legal affairs secretary is David Sapp, a state employee whose salary comes from California taxpayers. If Sapp drafted the FOIA request on state time, using state resources, to help Newsom deal with a personal legal matter, DeMaio argues that crosses a clear line in state law.
The governor's office has not disputed that Sapp drafted the letter or that it went out on official letterhead. Nor has it offered a legal rationale for why the filing should be considered official state business rather than a personal endeavor.
DeMaio's complaint cites California Government Code 8314, which lays out the rules in plain language. The statute states:
"It is unlawful for any elected state or local officer, including any state or local appointee, employee, or consultant, to use or permit others to use public resources for a campaign activity, or personal or other purposes which are not authorized by law."
The law defines "personal purpose" as "those activities the purpose of which is for personal enjoyment, private gain or advantage, or an outside endeavor not related to state business." The penalty provision carries teeth: a civil fine of up to $1,000 per day of violation, plus three times the value of any public resources unlawfully used.
DeMaio's argument rests on a distinction that matters. If the DOJ investigation targets Newsom's conduct as governor, official acts, policy decisions, exercises of executive authority, then using state staff to respond might be defensible. But if the investigation concerns personal matters involving Newsom and his wife, then directing a state employee to draft a FOIA response on state letterhead looks like exactly the kind of conduct Section 8314 was written to prevent.
The nature of the DOJ investigation remains unclear. Neither the federal government nor Newsom's office has publicly detailed what conduct or allegations the probe involves. That ambiguity sits at the center of this dispute, and it is an ambiguity Newsom's office has done nothing to resolve.
Rather than address the specific allegation about misuse of state resources, Newsom's chief deputy director of communications, Tara Gallegos, offered a response that pivoted entirely to the federal investigation itself. Gallegos told The Center Square by email:
"As he has for the last 18 months, the President and his Administration are attacking the Governor, this time through a politicized fishing expedition, because of the work he's doing as the Governor, where he has consistently been one of the most effective voices pushing back on Trump's lawlessness."
Notice what that statement does and does not do. It frames the DOJ investigation as political retaliation. It positions Newsom as a victim of federal overreach. What it does not do is explain why a state employee drafted a FOIA letter on official letterhead for what appears to be a personal legal matter. It does not cite any legal authority permitting the use of state resources in this way. It does not even acknowledge the substance of DeMaio's complaint.
That non-answer is telling. Newsom has previously claimed the DOJ investigation was directed by President Trump over a potential 2028 presidential bid, a framing that, if true, would suggest the probe is personal and political in nature. But that framing cuts both ways. If the investigation is personal rather than official, then Newsom's own characterization undermines the case for using state resources to respond to it.
DeMaio directed his complaint to two entities: the Fair Political Practices Commission and Attorney General Bonta. Neither has signaled any action.
The Fair Political Practices Commission referred questions from The Center Square to the Attorney General's Office. Bonta's office did not respond by the time of publication. That silence is not unusual at this stage, investigations take time to evaluate, but it leaves the complaint in limbo.
There is a structural problem worth noting. DeMaio filed his complaint with Attorney General Bonta, a Democrat who serves in the same administration as Newsom. Asking a governor's political ally to investigate that governor requires a degree of institutional independence that California's current political alignment does not naturally produce. The Fair Political Practices Commission, while nominally independent, referred the matter right back to Bonta's office.
Whether either body pursues the complaint may say more about the state of accountability in Sacramento than about the merits of the allegation itself. This is not the first time Newsom has faced scrutiny over the boundaries between public resources and private interests, and the pattern of how such questions get handled, or buried, matters.
Set aside the legal technicalities for a moment. A governor facing a federal investigation directed a salaried state employee to draft a FOIA request on official letterhead, seeking records about that investigation. The governor's office did not deny this. Instead, it attacked the motives of the people asking questions.
That is a pattern California taxpayers should recognize. When officials blur the line between public duty and private benefit, the first instinct is rarely transparency. It is deflection, point at the accusers, question their motives, and hope the news cycle moves on.
DeMaio, for his part, moved fast. Newsom filed the FOIA request on Monday. DeMaio's complaint landed with the Fair Political Practices Commission and the Attorney General on Tuesday. Whatever one thinks of the political dynamics, the timeline shows a legislator using the tools available under state law to demand accountability from the executive branch.
The DOJ probe into Newsom has already drawn attention from national Democratic figures, some of whom have been conspicuously uninterested in commenting. That reluctance suggests the political class understands the investigation carries real weight, even if no one wants to say so publicly.
Several important questions remain unanswered. What exactly is the DOJ investigating? What did Newsom's FOIA request seek? Has David Sapp or anyone in the Governor's Office disputed DeMaio's account of how the letter was produced? And will either the Fair Political Practices Commission or the Attorney General actually open an investigation, or will the complaint quietly disappear into a filing cabinet?
The dollar amounts at stake under Government Code 8314 may be modest, $1,000 per day plus triple the value of resources used. But the principle is not modest at all. The law exists because voters decided that elected officials should not treat the public payroll as a personal concierge service. California's political establishment has a long track record of expecting accountability from everyone except its own leadership.
If Newsom believes the FOIA filing was legitimate state business, he should say so, clearly, on the record, with a legal basis. If he cannot, then a state employee spent taxpayer time doing personal legal work for the governor, and the law has something to say about that.
Accountability does not pause because the governor finds the questions inconvenient. Or at least it shouldn't.
