The latest indictment against former President Donald Trump has been issued in Fulton County, Georgia. The grand jury has filed a slew of charges against Trump and his associates over the 2020 election.

Members of the chattering class have been a-buzzing since the indictments were announced on Monday. Democrats are doing their typical celebratory routine and repeating the same “walls are closing in” diatribes in anticipation of seeing their favorite boogeyman behind bars. Others, like Harvard Law scholar Alan Dershowitz, are pointing out the glaring issues with the latest politically-motivated effort to weaponize the justice system against a political opponent.

For those who haven’t caught up on the indictment:

Indictments were returned by a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury Monday evening, against Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, former North Carolina Sen. Mark Meadows, and John Eastman. The 41-count indictment includes charges of racketeering, solicitation of violation of an oath by a public officer, conspiracy, and filing a false statement.

Others indicted are Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Ray Smith III, Robert Cheeley, Michael Roman, David Shafer, Shawn Still, Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, Trevian Kutti, Sidney Powell, Cathleen Latham, Scott Hall, and Misty Hayes.

The former president slammed the indictments in typical Trumpian fashion. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote:

Like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Deranged Jack Smith, and New York AG Letitia James, Fulton County, GA's radical Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis is a rabid partisan who is campaigning and fundraising on a platform of prosecuting President Trump through these bogus indictments. Ripping a page from Crooked Joe Biden’s playbook, Willis has strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign. All of these corrupt Democrat attempts will fail.

During an interview, Dershowitz also criticized the indictment, comparing it to Democrats contesting the outcome of the 2000 presidential election:

Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, speaking to Fox News Digital, criticized the pending indictment, calling Trump’s actions  "very similar" to that of Al Gore’s legal strategy in the Bush v. Gore case that decided the 2000 presidential election.

"We challenged the election, and we did much of the things that are being done today and people praised us. I wrote a bestselling book called ‘Supreme Injustice. Now they're making it a crime," Dershowitz said.

In a conversation with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Dershowitz criticized the district attorney’s office for expanding the RICO statute to “include political objections,” observing: 

"You cannot start making crimes out of things that the Democrats did -- Tilden Hayes, John Kennedy election, 2000 election, 2016 election, Jamie Raskin gets up and does some of the same things. These are political actions that the Constitution prefers us to take rather than going out on the streets and rioting. We're supposed to go to court. We're supposed to go to Congress. You can't make those things crimes. And you can't expand the RICO statute to now include political objections."

The Fulton County indictment, like some of the others, seems to involve prosecutors stretching the laws to target Trump. Similar criticisms were made about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg when he indicted the former president over the Stormy Daniels hush money payments. Weaponizing the law in this manner only makes it more obvious that these officials are trying to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

Democrats appear to believe these legal actions will help them politically. They might be right. But it is also possible that this cynical use of the justice system might just backfire on them.