Gavin Newsom is presumed innocent. He hasn’t even been charged with anything yet — though he claimed earlier this week that federal agents have been questioning his relatives and associates.

There are several controversies that might warrant a closer look — the hundreds of millions of dollars he solicited in “behested payments” for his wife’s nonprofit, for example, which he was fined for disclosing too late; or the recent guilty plea of his former chief of staff on corruption and fraud charges.

But Newsom is entitled to a vigorous defense. And this week, he wrote to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), demanding that it provide any information about political motivations for the investigation, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Aggressive tactics, to be sure.

David Buchan for Ca Post

There’s just one thing wrong, however: The governor’s demand came on his official letterhead, with a request for DOJ to reply directly to an email address tied to the governor’s office.

Why is the governor using state resources for his personal defense?

And if he is, isn’t that the very essence of corruption?

After all, we are told — by the governor himself — that the DOJ isn’t investigating a California government agency, but rather Mr. Gavin Newsom, and that it is singling him out personally in an effort to destroy his future presidential ambitions.

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Even if those are the motives, what does the state of California have to do with that?

Why should state employees file legal requests on his behalf?

We’ve been learning a lot recently about Newsom’s personal wealth of $30 million, his real estate assets, his start in the wine industry, and more.

He can afford his own criminal defense lawyer; why doesn’t he hire one, as long as he is going to out himself as the target of a federal probe?

Unlike the president of the United States, who enjoys immunity from personal prosecution while in office, the governor enjoys no such privilege.

He has an official legal secretary, David Sapp, who signed the FOIA request to DOJ.

Sapp, according to Capitol Weekly, is the official to whom Newsom turns when he “needs legal advice in his efforts to counter The Donald.”

But when he is preparing his own criminal defense, why should the state be implicated at all?

The FOIA letter is a way of positioning the DOJ inquiry as an attack on California itself.

But this is Newsom’s problem, not ours.