Much for the United States hinges on whether federal prosecutors indict a former president for the first time in their history.
The ever-growing body of evidence surrounding Donald Trump's attempts to undermine democracy and incite militant supporters to violently storm the Capitol after his election defeat is likely to have long since pushed investigators to their limits.
Now there is also the Republican's handling of some top secret documents, which he probably illegally took home with him and did not hand over to the national archivists despite intensive efforts and protestations to the contrary.
In addition to criminal offenses such as high treason or incitement to riot, which have stimulated the imagination of Trump opponents at least since the public hearings on the storming of the Capitol, this may seem secondary.
But even the raid to secure the documents was based, among other things, on the suspicion that the Espionage Act had been violated.
It's not a small thing.
Garland had to assume the worst
Perhaps even more than the federal attorney's office and a grand jury, American society in the medium term depends on the conclusion of the "court of public opinion."
Can Trump's 74 million November 2020 voters be persuaded that laws apply to a man they sent to Washington as a bulldozer and whose mistrust of the "deep state" is shared by many citizens?
Attorney General Garland will not have been surprised at how vehemently Trump played the victim card after the raid.
He must have guessed that many Republicans would use the opportunity to undermine the credibility of his agency and even the FBI.
In the America of 2022, he might even have considered the possibility that armed Trumpists would retaliate against the FBI, as was apparently attempted in Cincinnati.
But nothing helps.
Garland is Attorney General.
He has to take care of law and order - regardless of politics.