California's Newsom still on hot seat for dinner party

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week he made a “bad mistake" by attending a friend's birthday dinner during a spike in coronavirus cases and promised to “own it" and move forward. But there was more to the story than he revealed.

Photos obtained by Fox 11 in Los Angeles show the governor in the company of multiple lobbyists and raise questions about how truthful Newsom was in claiming the dinner was outdoors. The images threaten his credibility at a time when he and health officials are pleading with Californians to stay home and not gather with friends and relatives outside their households.

Los Angeles County Health Director Barbara Ferrer, whose county is facing the possibility of a three-week lockdown if cases continue on their current trajectory, called Newsom’s decision to attend the dinner “a big mistake” that she trusts won’t happen again.

Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, said “in the future when critics of lobbyists make their case, this dinner will be Exhibit A.”

Newsom attended the dinner on Nov. 6 at the French Laundry, one of the finest and most expensive restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. His administration didn't acknowledge it until a week later when a reporter was tipped and asked about it.

Newsom apologized on Monday and described the dinner as outdoors. But the photos show Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, sitting maskless around a crowded table of 12 inside a room that was enclosed on three sides.

The fourth side was open, though the woman who took the photos and provided them to Fox 11 said a sliding glass door eventually was closed after Newsom’s group became loud. The woman was not identified by the station.

Nathan Click, a spokesman for...