Questions surrounding the finances of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Newsom, continue to draw attention as federal investigators reportedly examine matters connected to the governor’s financial affairs.
During an interview, Katie Pavlich spoke with journalist Josh Boswell about his investigation into Jennifer Newsom’s charity and the financial questions that led him to examine the organization more closely.
“What made you look into Newsom’s wife in the first place, and what did you find?” Pavlich asked.
Boswell said longstanding questions surrounding the Newsoms’ finances prompted his review.
“Well, there are just always a lot of questions that seem to be swirling around the nuisance, and their finances have been for years, and so I thought, you know, this is a man who clearly is going to be running for president. This is worth looking at, you know, what their finances are, what the shape of them are,” Boswell said.
According to Boswell, his review of Jennifer Newsom’s charitable organization revealed compensation levels that stood out compared with similar nonprofits.
“And so when I had a look at Jennifer Newsom’s charity, I found that she was paying herself since 2012 $3.7 million and this is a lot of money when you look at the amount that the charity brings in, it’s sort of one to 1.7 million a year, and she’s paying up to a third of that to herself and her own company $300,000 a year,” Boswell said.
Boswell said he compared the compensation figures to other charities of similar size and found the payments ranked unusually high.
“Now that is, I did a bit of data analysis, looking at what charities that size usually pay their executives, and she was in the top 5% of all charities in the nation for pay,” Boswell said.
Pavlich then turned to the reported Department of Justice investigation, noting that officials have not publicly discussed specific details.
“So, DOJ, of course, Triton doesn’t comment on the specifics of this, we’ve really only heard from Gavin Newsom claiming this investigation is targeting them, even though, as we mentioned, it started in 2022 in his orbit. Do you think that the charity is the reason DOJ might be investigating her?” Pavlich asked.
Boswell said there are several areas that investigators could potentially examine.
“There’s a whole bunch of reasons, potentially. There are a lot of questions around their finances, so the charity could be one of them,” Boswell said.
He noted that nonprofit executives can legally receive substantial compensation but suggested donor relationships could draw scrutiny.
“Now it is legal for a charity to pay whatever they want to their executives, but one of the issues they might be looking at is who are the donors to the charity that are financing that pay. What kind of relationships do they have with the California government that Newsom is in charge of?” Boswell said.
Boswell also pointed to what he described as discrepancies between reported income and expenses.
“There’s also, if you look at his income, and he’s released at least partly to journalists in closed-door viewing sessions, his tax returns, and if you look at that, his income, it’s about 1.2 to 1.4 million a year, and it just doesn’t add up for all of his expenses,” Boswell said.
He cited mortgage payments and living expenses as examples.
“He’s got massive mortgages, $625,000 in mortgage payments, and he’s got at least a million dollars in living expenses, and the two just don’t add up. I would be interested in that if I were an IRS investigator,” Boswell said.
Boswell also highlighted questions involving a Sacramento property purchase.
“One other thing to look at here is the way that his property transactions are structured lead to a lot of questions. When he bought his $3.7 million Sacramento estate, it was done through an LLC, but that LLC doesn’t seem to have appeared on his tax returns,” Boswell said.
According to Boswell, the structure of the transaction raises additional questions that have yet to be fully addressed.
“There’s all kinds of questions why he would do it that way, and he hasn’t answered those satisfactorily. So, if I’m IRS, I’m looking at that too, thinking maybe there’s an issue here. We’ve yet to see what the actual details are, of course,” Boswell said.
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