Elder raises claims against Newsom’s wife days before recall | Sacramento Bee

Two days before the recall election, leading candidate Larry Elder appeared with an actress who says Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife tried to suppress her rape claims against disgraced director Harvey Weinstein.

The Democratic governor and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom responded that the charge was false.

Elder held a Los Angeles press conference with actress and activist Rose McGowan, who said Siebel Newsom contacted her in 2017 on behalf of David Boies, a lawyer for Weinstein, the director McGowan says raped her.

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McGowan said the contact occurred six months before a New York Times story she said she set up detailed how Weinstein had settled with multiple women, including McGowan, who accused him of assault.

“She wanted to meet me, she reached out to me,” McGowan told libertarian YouTuber Dave Rubin in a video posted Thursday. “This woman I don’t know, some blonde lady with the last name of Newsom, cold calls me and is like ‘Davis Boies wants to know what it would take to make you happy.’”

Through a spokesman, Siebel Newsom denied that her motivation had anything to do with helping Weinstein.

“What is being alleged is a complete fabrication,” said Newsom campaign spokesman Nathan Click. “It’s disappointing but not surprising to see political opponents launch these false attacks just days before the election. Their limited correspondence has been strictly as fellow survivors of sexual assault and in Jennifer’s former capacity leading the Representation Project, an organization that fights limiting gender stereotypes.”

Siebel Newsom is a documentary filmmaker who herself accused Weinstein of “aggressive advances” following the 2017 New York Times story.

“Based on my years in the industry and unfortunately, my own personal experience with Harvey Weinstein, I can tell you that I believe every single word that was written in the extremely disturbing, but not all that shocking, New York Times piece published yesterday,” Siebel Newsom wrote at the time in a Huffington Post op-ed. “Not all that shocking because very similar things happened to me. I was naive, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances.”

Boies has been an ally and campaign donor to Gavin Newsom. He is known for representing Al Gore during the 2000 election recount and for defending same-sex marriage in California. Siebel Newsom’s brother-in-law works for his firm, which provided the Newsom administration free legal work related to the death penalty moratorium.

In a screenshot that McGowan said on Twitter shows Siebel Newsom “admitting it,” she posted what she says is an email Siebel Newsom sent to another person explaining the situation: “I want us to heal as a culture and so I asked Rose ‘what if anything Boies could do to help her to heal’ and then I thought I would present that to my brother in law to present to Boies.”

McGowan has been publicly critical of both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. Last year, she tweeted that Biden and the Democratic National Committee were “monsters” and called the Democratic Party a “cult.”

She encouraged Californians to vote to recall Newsom, a Democrat, and replace him with Elder, a Republican talk show host.

Elder earlier in the campaign faced an accusation that he behaved aggressively toward a former fiance. Alexandra Datig, a former radio producer for Elder who once worked as a prostitute, said he brandished a gun at her while high on marijuana.

Elder denied the charge.

This story was originally published September 12, 2021 6:43 PM.