You might have heard that Donald Trump was indicted for alleged criminal violation of campaign finance law. You also might have heard that Captain Ahab Democrat Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was, as Trump put it, “handpicked and funded by George Soros.” Well, our “fact-checker” friends at USA Today want you to know that these campaign finance stories are completely different.

Leftmedia outlets are having a field day salivating over every minute detail of Trump’s arraignment yesterday, going to great length to convict the former president in the court of opinion for running afoul of campaign finance law to pay off Stormy Daniels. By contrast but also predictably, they are circling the wagons around Bragg because his campaign financing was perfectly by the book.

Here’s the long and short of it:

• Color of Change PAC, a left-wing activist group, pledged $1 million in spending to support Bragg’s campaign. It wasn’t a direct contribution but rather campaign activity on his behalf.

• Days later, George Soros gave $1 million to Color of Change PAC, dwarfing its next largest donation receipt of $50,000.

• Overall, Soros has given more than $1.4 million directly to Color of Change, and millions more via other groups like Democracy PAC and Win Justice, both of which also gave millions to Color of Change, which helped elect Bragg.

• Soros has, over the years, donated perhaps $40 million to various and sundry candidates or groups for the purpose of electing left-wing DAs across the U.S.

Ergo, conservatives conclude with good reason, Soros intentionally helped elect Bragg, who shares his radically left-wing philosophy on criminal justice. (For example, while Bragg is elevating Trump’s alleged crimes to felonies so he can still prosecute, Bragg downgraded more than half of all felony charges to misdemeanors for actual criminals.)

Not so fast, says USA Today. When some Republicans call Bragg “Soros-funded” or “-backed,” or assert that Bragg “took one million dollars” from Soros, the “fact-checkers” rush out to tsk tsk and set the record straight regarding this poor, er, fabulously rich “frequent target of conspiracy theorists.”

“Soros did not directly donate to Bragg, and a third-party group Soros donated to also didn’t make direct donations, opting instead for an independent expenditure campaign,” explains Sudiksha Kochi. “Michael Vachon, a Soros spokesperson, told USA TODAY in an email that Soros has never met or spoken to Bragg.” (Uh, a meeting or conversation is not necessary for backing, and anyone who thinks some kind of communication didn’t happen between relevant parties is either naive or lying.) Moreover, Kochi says the money Soros gave to Color of Change was “not earmarked for Bragg.”

She admits the same facts we bulleted above, even adding that The Open Society Policy Center is another Soros-funded organization that donated to Color of Change, and that Soros’s son and daughter-in-law gave directly to Bragg’s campaign.

Nevertheless, she elaborates on why these perfectly legal campaign donations and expenditures put plenty of distance between Bragg and Soros. In fact, her big conclusion is this: “Experts say no legal link between Soros donation, Bragg.”

What would we do without experts?

Just remember this whole thing came up because Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels to not talk about Donald Trump, and then Trump reimbursed Cohen. That’s an outrageous crime, but Soros giving to Color of Change giving to Bragg is totally different. The irony and hypocrisy is almost too much to bear.

After setting the record (ahem) straight, Kochi helpfully added additional smears against conservatives. “Soros is a frequent target of misinformation,” she huffed. Worse, she joined the likes of Washington Post “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler in maligning conservative critics of Soros as motivated by anti-Semitism: “Soros, who is Jewish, has also been linked to various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.” Soros dismisses his own Jewish heritage and works feverishly against Israel, but whatever. Conservatives are not just wrong about the facts in this case, the “fact-checkers” say, but racist and bigoted to boot.

It’s worth noting that when Democrats and John McCain crafted campaign finance reform 20 years ago, this is exactly what they wrought. Limiting direct contributions to political candidates doesn’t “get the money out of politics,” which was their high-minded rationale at the time. Far from it. The law’s convoluted stipulations just mean even more money finds its way into grifting organizations like Color of Change, while Democrats grumble about “dark money.” As a bonus, the Leftmedia gets to “discredit” conservatives for pointing out that money in the shallow end of the pool is the same as money in the deep end.

There’s no discernible difference between the objectives of George Soros, Alvin Bragg, or, for that matter, Joe Biden. And all the while, Leftmedia rags like USA Today are so thoroughly corrupted by this ideology that they may actually not even be able to discern the fact that they are nothing but parrots for this agenda.