Opinion | Trump has never been in so much peril. Nor has the GOP.

These potential violations could be on top of the potential charges regarding his phony elector scheme; his effort to pressure former vice president Mike Pence to illegally reject electoral votes; and his invitation and incitement of the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021. As to incitement, University of Chicago law professor emeritus Albert W. Alschuler, writing for Just Security, argues that Trump’s failure to act once the insurrection was underway and his 2:24 p.m. tweet further riling up the crowd against Pence might be powerful evidence against Trump on the charge of “aiding and abetting” the insurrection, since Trump had a legal duty to intervene.

And then, of course, there are the Georgia state criminal statutes that Trump might have violated in his effort to pressure state officials in Georgia to “find” just enough votes to flip the state’s election. Fani T. Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga., is moving full speed ahead with her investigation, with an eye on charges that could include conspiracy to commit voting fraud, interference with performance of an official’s duties and violation of Georgia’s racketeering law.

Considering the parade of witnesses appearing before the FBI, the federal grand jury and the grand jury in Georgia, prosecutors are no doubt collecting a mound of evidence against the former president. And the more witnesses who talk, the higher the risk that someone strikes a deal to incriminate Trump. The identification of Rudy Giuliani as a target in the Georgia investigation raises the potential that even Trump’s attorney might turn on him to avoid prosecution.

Altogether, it seems Trump is in more legal peril than ever before. His misconceptions about the criminal justice system and his supporters’ wishful thinking do not diminish the danger of indictment.

Trump’s lame overtures to Attorney General Merrick Garland to “reduce the heat” of the political fallout from the Mar-a-Lago search — while simultaneously insinuating that violence might occur if the Justice Department keeps pursuing him — is as disingenuous as it is utterly irrelevant to Garland. The Justice Department’s prosecutors and investigators certainly don’t care if Republicans are still enthralled with Trump. They will go after anyone who engages in acts of violence, as Garland made clear in his remarks last week in which he demanded that people stop impugning and threatening the FBI.

Likewise, while Trump seems convinced that announcing his presidential bid for 2024 would make it harder for prosecutors to indict him, that’s another Trumpian…