Brace Yourselves For a Disorienting Shock: Silicon Valley Bank Routinely Donated to Gavin Newsom's Bagman Wife Before Gavin Newsome Selflessly Lobbied for Biden to Fill It With More Government Money

No one expected this, certainly!

After Years of Lobbying and Donations, Gavin Newsom Stepped In To Sell Biden on Silicon Valley Bank Bailout

Failed bank has funneled cash to top Democrats

Susannah Luthi
March 14, 2023

California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) helped persuade President Joe Biden to bail out Silicon Valley Bank and was one of the first politicians to praise the move. His assistance comes years after the failed bank began lobbying California's government and donating to Newsom's wife.

Newsom helped convince Biden during a Saturday meeting that a bailout was necessary. In 2021, Silicon Valley Bank quietly gave $100,000 to Jennifer Siebel Newsom's California Partners Project as it was gearing up to lobby the state's university, pension, and teachers' retirement systems. The gift was the California's bank's largest contribution to any California entity that year.

It seems to have been a wise investment. Newsom issued a statement hours after the White House announced its bailout decision, lauding the Biden administration for acting "swiftly and decisively to protect the American economy" and praising the bailout as having "profoundly positive impacts on California." While what came of the bank's California lobbying campaign is unclear, both the state workers' and teachers' pensions are invested in the Silicon Valley Bank to the tune of $67 million and $11 million respectively, according to spokesmen.

Silicon Valley Bank and the Newsoms were a perfect match. California's first couple has come under fire for their ethically dubious relationships with donors, who have a habit of donating to one of Siebel Newsom's nonprofits whenever they need something from her husband's office. And the bank, which collapsed last week after announcing it did not have enough cash to cover withdrawals, has a history of making large financial donations to potential political allies.

Read the whole thing. As mentioned earlier, Gavin Newsom forgot to mention that he had money in SVB when he lobbied Biden to fill it up with more government money, and then bragged about his lobbying efforts, and praised Biden for backstopping depositors' accounts.

What Newsom failed to include in his praise for the Biden administration's decision to intervene on behalf of SVB's customers, whose money over the FDIC-insured amount of $250,000 was in limbo before the move was made, is that three of his wineries -- CADE, Odette, and PlumpJack -- are clients of the bank.

Originally pointed out by The Intercept, SVB's library of global assets names the three upscale wineries as customers.

"Newsom also maintained personal accounts at SVB for years, according to a longtime former employee of Newsom's who handled his finances, and who requested anonymity to avoid professional reprisal," reported Ken Klippenstein.

Newsom's flack responded that Newsom has his money in a "blind trust." The implication being that he wouldn't know where his companies keep their money.

That's bullsh!t anyway, but even if the blind trust prevented him from knowing this, his sister would know -- she administers his very air-quote " " " blind " " " trust. I'm sure she never mentioned that all of their money just evaporated, not ever, not even once.

posted by Ace at 05:15 PM

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