The rap on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is that he was in over his head, lurching and grasping to prosecute former president Donald Trump, and that the case would collapse in a New York minute.

Trump himself lit the fuse two weeks ago when he proclaimed he would be arrested. That set off a firestorm, of course.

No former president, and no former president who was again running to be elected, had ever been indicted in the history of the republic. (It is always all-spectacle-all-the-time with Trump. Not one impeachment, but two. Not just refusing to accept that he lost the 2020 election, but an attack on the Capitol too. Not just a trip to Manhattan to face the music, but nonstop slo-mo Skycams of the SUVs and the plane that were bigger TV than the police chase of O.J. Simpson on the LA freeways 30 years ago.) The frenzy engulfed all the commentary – especially the legal analysis and whether there was a true case for Trump to answer.

Bragg faced a real political and legal challenge. Was it really worth using the relatively small amount of political capital a Manhattan district attorney has to seek an indictment of Trump on business record and campaign finance machinations, when the “real” Trump crimes involved much more serious stuff? They include allegations that he criminally incited the insurrection of January 6 to prevent Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden, allegations that Trump criminally pressured officials in Georgia to overturn the 2020 election results in that state, and allegations that Trump criminally mishandled classified documents and obstructed the attempts of government officials to retrieve presidential papers.

Is what Bragg is pursuing truly on a par with these other investigations that more surely go to the heart of the corruption of the bedrock of American democracy?

What Bragg proved was that this case is not a garden-variety fiddling with the books. Bragg made that clear in two sentences in the indictment and one sentence in his media conference:

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“The defendant Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election. From August 2015 to December 2017, the defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.”