A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Donald Trump’s pathetic and sleazy effort to create a slush fund of $1.776 billion that his lieutenants could dole out to his political allies, including, possibly, his violent January 6 brownshirts, appears to be dead. After even Republicans howled about this brazen corruption, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former (and, in a way, still) personal lawyer, proclaimed the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” kaput—though Trump continues to support this idea and there remains a possibility it could be revived in some form. But in all the brouhaha over this attempt by Trump to swipe nearly 2 billion smackers from American taxpayers, one damn big point has gotten lost: The claim that past administrations weaponized government against Trump and his right-wing confederates is complete bullshit.

There was no need for such a fund, because there were no such victims. This chief grievance of Trump and his MAGA cult is a myth that’s been created to cover up the many transgressions of Trump himself. And any acceptance of this notion of weaponization is a win for Trump.

Official reviews of the Russia investigation repeatedly declared it was a legitimate enterprise that was justifiably initiated and not a political hit job.

Trump has been braying for years that he has been the target of politically motivated investigations and prosecutions—what’s called lawfare. But that’s not true. The granddaddy of all this, as far as he is concerned, was the Russia investigation. He’s been moaning about the “Russia, Russia, Russia” probe for a decade, and through that stretch, he, his GOP lickspittles, and his right-wing media enablers have contended the investigation was a fraud cooked up by the Deep State, the Democrats, and the media.

But…no. Official reviews of the Russia investigation repeatedly declared it was a legitimate enterprise that was justifiably initiated and not a political hit job. This included a Justice Department inspector general report issued in........

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