And even if the attorney general wanted to act on Trump, time may be running out.

Given the long-standing Department of Justice precedent of not taking political action close to an election — with one notable exception — even if Garland did want to indict Trump — a very big if — it would likely happen late this year or sometime next year, long after Trump has already declared his candidacy for 2024, at which point nearly half the country would view any such indictment through the lens of the 2024 campaign, not the strong legal case to convict. That’s a fact Trump no doubt knows and will exploit by announcing his campaign sooner rather than later.

There was a moment in history — in the hours and days after the bloody Jan. 6 insurrection — where true accountability was possible. For a fleeting moment, it looked as though the Republican Party was ready to purge itself, and the nation, of Trump and his lies. But that moment didn’t last even two weeks. Instead of joining with Democrats to immediately impeach and convict Donald Trump and prevent him from ever running for office again, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delayed impeachment, allowing Trump and his allies to organize against it and giving cowardly Republican senators the excuse that Trump was out of office as a reason not to convict him when the trial was eventually held.