Former President Donald Trump is now facing his first federal indictment which includes 31 violations of the Espionage Act. While a recent poll says 48% of American voters agree Trump should have been charged with the crime, some analysts argue Trump might again avoid any significant negative fallout.

Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten suggests the charges could even get dismissed. Whatever the outcome, Weingarten believes the indictments against the former president are hurtful to America.

The case could get dismissed. The government could lose in Florida, or as the case goes up the legal ladder, potentially. But the damage has been done to our republic, whether or not Trump walks free.

And I think the brazenness and the overt politicization here is the point. This is in effect an information operation using lawfare — a political indictment irrespective of its legal merits.

It is meant to shock the conscience. It is meant to eviscerate all norms. It is meant to demonstrate that this is what has become of our institutions — that they are political apparatuses wielded as weapons against their opponents to the point of seeking to get an ex-president behind bars on sentences totaling hundreds of years.

The effort now to coerce Judge Cannon to recuse because she might not rubber-stamp the government’s case aims to further corrupt and delegitimize our system, setting the stage for still further attacks on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court aimed at getting judges there to rule “rightly” if Trump cases ever arrive there, recuse, or risk the wrath of unhinged progressives.

Our republic is in a dark and perilous place. If this prosecution ends tomorrow, nevertheless, it will have transformed us into a Third World country.