Gavin Newsom curiously lays low as FBI investigates him and his wife

Gov.Gavin Newsom has traded press conferences for polished videos after announcing last month that he and his wife are under FBI investigation, fueling questions about his increasingly controlled public appearances.The media savvy and gel-shellacked California governor — known for seeking out TV cameras and soliloquizing ad infinitum — has kept a noticeably lower profile since June 15, when he disclosed the Justice Department investigations in a pre-recorded video blasted out on social media.Instead of the freewheeling press conferences, bill signings and public events that have defined much of his governorship, Newsom has increasingly relied on carefully scripted videos and staged appearances where there is no opportunity for the media to ask questions.“Newsom certainly isn’t the only politician to use digital media to establish absolute message control,” said Dan Schnur, a professor of political communications at USC and UC Berkeley.“But he may be one of the most aggressive officeholders in the way he uses these tools.”In the videos posted June 15, Newsom said President Trump’s Justice Department was targeting him and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom as part of a politically motivated “fishing expedition.”Since then, the governor has offered no substantive update on the federal investigation and has largely avoided discussing his former chief of staff Dana Williamson, who is scheduled to be sentenced Sept.

17 after pleading guilty in a corruption scheme.“I’m not sure I’d be all that excited about him answering questions about that,” Schnur said.“Even if, as he claims, he is completely unaware of any of this activity, there is no good sound bite on this topic that can possibly come out of an interview or news conference.”The governor’s public appearances have instead largely consisted of highly produced videos released through his office and social media accounts.On Independence Day, Newsom released an eight-minute video film...