Vanity Fair essay revives 2007 Newsom affair with new Harris detail
What's new: Ruby Rippey wrote that then-San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris urged her to stay quiet as the scandal broke.
A Vanity Fair essay by Ruby Rippey has reopened scrutiny of Gavin Newsom's 2007 affair, adding a new claim about Kamala Harris' role after it became public. Rippey, then an appointments secretary in San Francisco and married to Newsom campaign manager Alex Tourk, wrote that Harris, then the city's district attorney, advised her to "pause" and avoid public comment or a book deal. The essay also challenges Newsom's later account of who disclosed the affair to Tourk, saying she had already done so before Newsom's version in his memoir. Rippey described the relationship as bound up with alcohol, power and her broader struggle with sobriety, marriage and public fallout.