California Governor and #MeToo champion Gavin Newsom accepted an expensive bottle of wine from the lawyer hired to represent Harvey Weinstein and dig up dirt on the women who accused him of sexual assault.
Democratic superlawyer David Boies gave Newsom the $300 bottle of wine weeks after Boies led a smear campaign against Weinstein’s accusers, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Boies helps run prestigious law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, which has also hit the headlines this weekend over a raft of staff departures linked to its work with Weinstein, Theranos founder Elizabeth Smart, and claims of nepotism linked to co-founder Jonathan Schiller’s two sons. The firm has denied claims of impropriety.
While others cut ties with Boies because of his work with the disgraced Hollywood producer, Newsom accepted the pricey gift on December 8, 2017, more than a month after reports revealed the lawyer worked to discredit Weinstein’s alleged victims.
The gift is set to reignite accusations that Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, helped Boies try to squash negative stories about Weinstein.
California Governor and #MeToo champion Gavin Newsom (left) accepted a $300 bottle of wine as a gift from Democratic superlawyer hired to represent Harvey Weinstein, David Boies (right), weeks after reports that the lawyer worked to discredit Weinstein’s alleged victims
David Boies (pictured right with Harvey Weinstein in 2002) was hired to represent the disgraced Hollywood producer and dig up dirt on the women who accused him of sexual assault
The gift will surely fuel accusations that Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom (right), helped Boies try to squash negative stories about Weinstein
Meanwhile, in the closing days of Newsom’s recall election – which ends on Tuesday – actress Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s alleged assault victims, told Dave Rubin on his show The Rubin Report that Newsom’s wife Jennifer called her back in 2017 to try and broker a deal between her and Boies to make the story go away.
‘This is about six months before the New York Times article on Weinstein that I set up broke,’ McGowan told Rubin.
Weinstein is pictured in 2016, the year before he was brought down by the #MeToo scandal and faced 11 additional sex crimes while already serving 23 years in New York
She added: ‘And she called me on behalf of a Theranos board member… long-time lawyer of Hillary and Bill Clinton and Weinstein, one David Boies. So this woman… some blonde lady with the last name of Newsom, cold calls me and is like, “David Boies wants to know what it would take to make you happy.”
‘I don’t know if it would be fiscal numeration. I don’t know. Absolutely nothing would make me happy.’
Despite McGowan’s allegations, Jennifer herself accused Weinstein of behaving inappropriately with her at a film festival years before the allegations against the 69-year-old came to light.
‘I was naïve, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances,’ she penned in a column for the Huffington Post, which also slammed ‘the entire engine of Harvey Weinstein’s business and legal machines’ for working to silence victims.
Two months later Newsom accepted the bottle of wine.
Jennifer also championed the #MeToo movement along with her husband, who has claimed to be a dedicated ally.
Newsom called it ‘a cultural movement, not a political movement’ while campaigning in Sacramento in 2018, though he was at the center of his own sex scandal as mayor of San Francisco.
Actress Rose McGowan (pictured), one of Weinstein’s alleged assault victims, told Dave Rubin on his show The Rubin Report that Jennifer called her back in 2017 to try and broker a deal between her and Boies to make the story go away
A decade after the affair the now-governor is up for recall after the petition to remove him from office. The recall election ends Tuesday, September 14
¿David Boies wants to know what it would take to make you happy¿¿@rosemcgowan tells me that Gavin Newsom¿s wife Jennifer called her on behalf of Harvey Weinstein¿s lawyer six months before the Weinstein scandal broke to make the story go away. pic.twitter.com/IG99Pb6tvl
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) September 9, 2021
He admitted to having an affair in February 2007 when he separated from his first wife Kimberly Guilfoyle with his subordinate Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who was also the wife of his chief campaign advisor.
Rippey-Tourk worked as Newsom’s appointment secretary. Her husband, Alex Tourk, resigned from Newsom’s campaign after he found out about their relationship.
Guilfoyle went on to become a Fox News host, and is now in a relationship with Donald Trump Jr.
Newsom said of the affair in Sacramento: ‘I acknowledged it. I apologized for it. I learned an enormous amount from it. We were very open and honest about it… And I am, every day, trying to be a champion and a model.’
A decade after the affair the now-governor is up for recall after the petition to remove him from office following ‘laws he endorsed favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our own citizens…the highest taxes in the nation, the highest homelessness rates and the lowest quality of life as a result,’ according to the petitioners’ grievances.
‘He has imposed sanctuary state status and fails to enforce immigration laws. He unilaterally over-ruled the will of the people regarding the death penalty. He seeks to impose additional burdens on our state by the following; removing the protections of Proposition 13, rationing our water use, increasing taxes and restricting parental rights,’ it added.
People behind the recall effort have slated Newsom over the Golden State’s draconian COVID restrictions, which went on longer than any other US state.
He outraged voters after dining inside at the ultra-exclusive French Laundry restaurant in November 2020, while urging Californians to stay out of restaurants.
And Newsom faced further accusations of being an out-of-touch hypocrite after admitting his kids had returned to in-person lessons at their private school in October 2020, while many Californian public school districts refused to do so.
Newsom has raised $70 million for his campaign, and is widely expected to survive the September 14 recall effort.
Republican challenger Larry Elder, who has pledged to take a far more libertarian attitude to governing should he win, is the candidate seen as the most likely to unseat Newsom should the polls prove wrong.