Brandon McGinley: The Department of Justice crosses the Rubicon

There is no turning back. The United States is now a country where federal law enforcement agencies have targeted and indicted a former president who is also the leading challenger to the current president, who himself has final responsibility for enforcing the law against his rival.

That may be a tendentious way of describing the federal indictment of Donald Trump, but it’s an accurate one. Nothing in that description indicates that what Attorney General Merrick Garland and special prosecutor Jack Smith decided was wrong — indeed, given the flagrancy of Mr. Trump’s flouting of the law, the former president may have forced their hand.

Even so, for the Department of Justice to intervene in politics in this way and at this time is an extraordinary act that requires extraordinarily good reasons. And I fear that, from the highest echelons of Washington to cable news analysts to everyday citizens, the extreme emotions evoked by Donald Trump have blinded us to the perilous precedent it sets.