Is this finally the breaking point? The Justice Department on Tuesday unveiled yet another round of criminal charges against Donald Trump, this time for conspiracy, obstruction and related offenses stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, continuing a string of unprecedented legal action against a former president.

With Trump still the front-runner to challenge President Biden next year, discretion in bringing such charges could hardly be more essential. Peruse the facts of this case, though, and it’s clear that special counsel Jack Smith has done the right thing – and that Republicans should abandon Trump while they still can.

Across 45 straightforward pages, the indictment details how Trump conspired to stay in power with help from six unnamed associates. It alleges that members of the group pressured the Justice Department to make false statements and open a “sham” investigation into the election; hatched an illegal scheme to appoint phony alternative electors in states where Biden won, and tried to get Vice President Mike Pence to unlawfully impede the certification of Biden’s victory. (When Pence refused to go along, Trump told him: “You’re too honest.”)

Crucially, Smith avoided bringing more esoteric charges – such as sedition or insurrection – that might have satisfied the president’s opponents but would have been much harder to prove. Instead, the indictment hews to the facts; demonstrates repeatedly that the former president and his associates knew what they were doing was unlawful, and shows that their conduct met the necessary elements for the charges in question.

All told, it puts Trump in a tight spot. These charges add to the 34 felony counts he faces in Manhattan, related to hush money payments made to a adult-film actress; his civil liability for sexual abuse and defamation in an unrelated New York case, and the 40 federal felonies he has been charged with in Florida for mishandling classified documents. He may yet face state charges in Georgia. The precise number of lawsuits pending against the former president is hard to pin down, but he will face expansive state fraud accusations in an October trial and a federal racketeering suit in January.

A cynic might ask: What’s a few more indictments? After all, Trump’s most fervent supporters will surely remain unfazed. Two points are worth stressing.

One is that this scheme – harebrained as it was – amounted to the most serious attack on the American electoral system ever undertaken. Although it had no chance of working, it was a brazen attempt to impede the lawful functioning of democracy, it led to a calamitous riot at the Capitol and it had no rationale other than satisfying the former president’s vanity. Such wrongdoing simply can’t go unpunished.

Two, even among Republicans, hope for a decisive break with Trump isn’t lost. By one analysis, the former president’s support among the party fell by 10 percentage points between May and June, following a previous federal indictment. The enormity of these latest charges shouldn’t improve matters. Recall the Trump-supporting jurors who reluctantly voted to jail the former president’s associates. Or the Trump-appointed judges who repeatedly shut down his hapless attempts to stay in power. Or the many, many Trump voters in positions of electoral authority who did the right thing in 2020, even under intense pressure from the man himself. There’s still time for the party to rally around one of many plausible alternatives seeking the nomination and leave this whole sordid show behind.

A jury will decide whether Donald Trump belongs in jail. Any sane voter should now see that he has no business returning to the White House.