Newsom's fancy dinner: from tone-deaf to criminal?

In case you hadn't heard, California governor Gavin Newsom attended a dinner at a fancy French restaurant with a $400 prix fixe menu in the middle of the pandemic.  No masks, indoors, high living.  And now it's been revealed that the bar bill was, ahem, substantial: "Who Paid For the (Alleged) $15,000 Wine Bill Gavin Newsom and Friends Racked Up at French Laundry?"

Newsom can receive up to $500/year in gifts from someone who’s not a registered state lobbyist.

Could they get around that restriction by claiming it was Newsom’s wife who received the gift, and not the Governor? Nope. A gift to Jennifer Siebel Newsom is considered a gift to Gavin Newsom for the purposes of FPPC reporting.

If someone else paid for Newsom’s dinner, the only possible way that could be done without skirting required financial disclosure rules would be if his longtime friend, the birthday boy, paid for the dinner, and if none of the lobbyist birthday boy’s clients had business currently before the state.

Ah, yes, it's very common for the birthday boy to pick up the five-figure restaurant bill.

Related - Federalist: "Your Political Leaders Hate You And Think You’re Stupid."