Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to explain the timing of the indictment of former president Trump.

How many months will pass from Donald Trump’s arraignment on June 13, before a verdict in what might well be the trial of this century? —the unprecedented federal criminal prosecution of a former president. 

The trial of O.J. Simpson, for those of you who can’t remember, took 16 months. That would mean the nation would be learning Trump’s fate a matter of weeks before Election Day, with the accused very possibly on the 2024 presidential ballot.

The idea that the Justice Department is flirting with this possibility is astonishing. Prosecutors had other options but chosen this … two months before the Republican debates begin.

My concerns are focused on the 31 counts concerning the documents and the Espionage Act. Was Trump’s possession of those documents so dangerous to national security that the former commander in chief must be put into the dock and face a prison sentence of more than 300 years?—all in the midst of nation’s quadrennial election cycle?

The damage from all this is going to be very difficult to undo.