Following weeks of anticipation, former President Donald Trump was arraigned April 4 in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.

In their Statement of facts, prosecutors argued that Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently” falsified records in an attempt to boost his chances in the 2016 presidential election by suppressing information about an alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Along the way, he also allegedly broke election laws and committed tax fraud. 

On the surface, the case seems fairly basic. It’s not like some of the other cases involving Trump. Those are about the subversion of democracy itself. This is simply about a person breaking the law. If prosecutors prove their case, a guilty man will be brought to justice. If they don’t, then an innocent man will be vindicated. Either way, the justice system is just going through its normal motions, just with an abnormally prominent defendant.

However, if you listen to many prominent Republicans, Trump’s legal situation is a travesty.

Trump ally and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said it was a “shocking and dangerous day for the rule of law in America.” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri called it “beyond absurd.” Even anti-Trump moderate Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the indictment “sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents.”

It should come as no surprise that most Republicans are defending Trump against the charges. After all, he’s still a major figure in the party and likely their next presidential nominee. What is somewhat surprising, though, is how they’ve chosen to defend their man.

They could stick to calling the charges weak or even baseless, but many go further and present the arrest as some sort of affront to the Constitution or a distortion of legal and political norms. Hawley even called it “an assault on the rule of law,” as if charging a prominent figure with a crime is some ghastly abomination that will pound away at the very foundations of the republic.

In reality, charging a politician with a crime is the very definition of the rule of law. Every person, no matter how popular or powerful they are, is accountable for their bad actions.

Lady Justice is blind. This concept is often held up in favor of defendants, but her impartiality is not always to the benefit of the accused.

Put in the context of the Trump case, any supposed, targeted prosecution is wrong but so is withheld, deserved prosecution. If Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has evidence to make a case against an alleged criminal, then he has the right and the imperative to do so. That criminal could be a mob moss, a petty thief or the former president of the United States; it doesn’t matter.

Trump’s legal troubles are evidence that the justice system is working – not that it’s about to fall apart.

It should encourage and fortify our shared trust in our institutions. Instead, some politicians are basically separating their base from those institutions through the mass exploitation of personal loyalty to the former president. They’re turning something that could be good for the country into something that is incredibly bad for it, and they’re doing it at a time when trust in the government is already low.

Matthew Pellittieri is a 19-year-old history and political science freshman from Ponchatoula.