California governor Gavin Newsom seems to wish ever so badly he were the target of a weaponized Justice Department. God knows he’d have plenty of company, given the Trump administration’s track record: Letitia James, James Comey, Mark Kelly, Jerome Powell, and others found themselves on the receiving end of bogus criminal investigations or prosecutions. But the available evidence and wide public reporting make clear that Newsom’s opportunistic narrative — that he’s yet another victim of Trump’s vindictive henchmen at DoJ — is simply wrong.

The early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 took to social media last week to announce that he and his wife had been put on Trump’s “hit list.” “He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us,” Newsom wrote. “He isn’t coming after me because of mean tweets, but because I am considering running for President.” Newsom also released a video in which he awkwardly recites a tagline befitting a generic ’80s action movie: “Mr. President, come after me. I am not going anywhere.”It’s a great story line for Newsom: Corrupt president unleashes shady prosecutors to kneecap the leading candidate of the opposition party and neutralize a burgeoning political threat. If only it were true.

The first problem with Newsom’s claim is that the investigation did not originate with Trump or his top political appointees at the Justice Department.........

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