Like millions of people, I am outraged at the political persecution of former President Donald Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg .

This move is unprecedented. No former president (and current presidential candidate) has ever faced criminal charges before. All people of goodwill should agree that the legal persecution of political opponents lines up more with autocracies and tyrannies than our system of constitutional republicanism. Unfortunately, however, this weaponization of our judicial system shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who have been paying attention over the last few years.

The political agenda at play is not hard to ascertain. Bragg is a far-left district attorney who was financially supported by George Soros in his run for the office. As a candidate, he even boasted that he had a history of going after Trump and his family, with the implicit promise that if elected, he would do it again. Now, he is doing exactly that.

Even the New York Times has admitted this is a "novel legal theory," observing that "New York State prosecutors have never before filed an election law case involving a federal campaign." Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi let the true motivations of this political indictment slip out when she tweeted that Trump "has a right to trial to prove innocence." She forgets that under the Constitution, all are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

This sham indictment is just one more abuse among a long string of attacks by our judicial system on Trump and his agenda. As a candidate, Trump was unfairly tarred as an intelligence agent for Vladimir Putin. It took Robert Mueller's expensive inquiry to clear him. Trump then faced not one but two impeachments, being acquitted in the Senate both times. Things didn’t end after his presidency, either. Last summer, the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in a hunt for mishandled classified documents — before we learned that President Joe Biden had also mishandled classified documents.

This weaponization of the federal government against Trump, and the plethora of apparent criminal activity laid out in the Hunter Biden laptop, is all evidence of a two-tiered justice system in America today. Bragg cares little for true justice, however. In New York City, crime skyrocketed by over 27% in 2022. This was thanks in large part to Bragg having lowered 52% of all felony charges to misdemeanors. His focus is on political agendas rather than stopping actual criminals.

The public is rightly horrified to see the nation that we love slowly degrading into a banana republic that persecutes political opposition. This undermines our credibility as a beacon for democracy and the just rule of law. Make no mistake: The coming battles will define the future of our country. Americans of good faith cannot give an inch to the radical Left and its allies in the media and the federal bureaucracy.

Dr. Ben Carson is the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute.