Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg thrust America into uncharted political and legal waters when he secured a grand jury indictment against Donald Trump. Soon his team will face withering scrutiny that will test three crucial elements of his case: the credibility of his witnesses, the clock known as the statute of limitations and the consistency of his application of fraud law.
The latter, which has received little media scrutiny, may prove prosecutors' most Herculean challenge as the courts for both New York and the nation have a very clear and high-bar definition of what constitutes the act of defrauding, something that is assumed to be a central element of the hush money scandal.
At present, no one knows for sure what's in the indictment, save for the prosecutors and grand jurors who handed up the charges. But the country will learn for sure next week when Trump becomes the first current or former president to surrender to a criminal arraignment.
At that moment, most likely on Tuesday, Bragg's team will cross a proverbial Rubicon, a point of no return that will reshape the future of American law and politics. And his team will face unprecedented scrutiny from the courts, the American electorate writ large and the Congress, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy made unmistakably clear Thursday night.