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Those who live by the sword, as the old proverb goes, die by the sword. This is a proverb that every ‘clever’ politician ought to be very aware of. What might seem like a easy way to torch your political opponents today can very well be a blowtorch turned back on you when, as is inevitable in a democracy, you’re out of government. Now, your opponents have got their hands on the very weapon you forged. Do you really think they’re not going to use it?
California Governor Gavin Newsom is learning that brutal lesson the hardest way.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a presumed Democratic candidate for the US presidency in 2028, says he and his wife are the victims of a politically motivated investigation by US President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.
Newsom said in a video statement that federal agents had knocked on the doors of his family members, friends and former employees in recent days. He did not provide details about these encounters, but said that agents were “demanding records” and “trying to find” a crime.
Does he mean in the same way the Democrats went relentlessly fishing and making up ‘crimes’ to bludgeon President Donald Trump and his allies with?
The sheer brass neck of it would be comical if it were not so predictable. For four years the Democrats turned the justice system into a blunt instrument against Trump and anyone near him. They invented novel legal theories in New York to criminalise a loan that was repaid in full. Democrat prosecutors even levelled criminal charges against a lawyer for doing nothing more than drafting a letter. The Democrats also pursued January 6 defendants with a zeal that would have made Stalin’s prosecutors blush, jailing some who literally walked into the Capitol at the invitation of security staff and did not a jot of damage.
Just to show that the sword of comeuppance cuts both ways, the repeated, frivolous impeachment proceedings against Trump only got off the ground in the first place because the Republicans had previously weaponised impeachment in an effort to take down Bill Clinton.
So, it’s a bit rich for a likely Democrat frontrunner for the next presidential election to start whining like a baby because the same swords Democrats slashed and hacked with for four years are being used against them.
“Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets, he’s coming after me because I am considering running for president.”
Spare us the tears. What goes around has simply come around. The same people who spent years insisting that investigating a president’s associates was vital accountability now discover that the principle applies to them as well.
Let’s be clear: there are no charges against Newsom himself at this stage. But let’s apply the same ‘no smoke without fire’ reasoning they used against the president.
His former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, was indicted on 23 counts of bank and wire fraud. Prosecutors allege she and co-conspirators siphoned funds from a dormant campaign account belonging to another California Democrat, funnelling money through shell companies for bogus consulting work. Luxury items, including a Chanel purse, private jet flights and a $150,000 birthday trip to Mexico, were allegedly claimed as business expenses on tax returns. Two other well-connected aides pleaded guilty. A fourth figure with deep ties to California’s Democratic consultant class was named as an uncharged co-conspirator.
This is precisely the tactic Democrats used against Trump: go after the inner circle hard enough and see what sticks to the boss. Investigations into Trump’s associates on corruption and related matters were treated as proof of guilt by association. The same standard now applies to Newsom’s orbit.
“One by one, anyone who has challenged Donald Trump has ended up on his hit-list, and today I proudly join that list.”
Newsom and his wife portray themselves as innocent victims of a vengeful regime. Yet the same administration that Newsom accuses of weaponising justice inherited a Department of Justice that had already been turned into a political enforcement arm by the previous occupants. Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, now sits in the acting attorney-general’s chair. The machine the Democrats built is simply running in the opposite direction.
Newsom’s broader complaint, that Trump is “selling the presidency” through merchandise, crypto and family business deals, rings especially hollow from a governor whose own state has become a byword for cronyism.
The lesson is straightforward. Once you normalise using state power to settle political scores, you lose the right to complain when the same power is turned on you. Democrats spent years insisting that no one was above the law while they stretched and twisted that law to target their opponents. They cannot now cry foul when the precedent they created is applied to them.
Newsom may yet escape formal charges. His associates already have not. The sword he helped sharpen has found new targets. He should not be surprised that it cuts both ways.
