The cards were already on the table when Mr Trump woke up in Manhattan on Tuesday. The case is what we thought it was, even if some of the evidence of what prosecutors allege was a pattern of election influence was new.
This suggests that the battle lines that had been forming over the past few days will only harden as the case proceeds toward trial. Republicans, who had been fairly united in their defence of Mr Trump since he posted on social media that an indictment was looming, will stay unified.
Even Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who voted to convict Mr Trump in his two impeachment trials, released a statement saying that Mr Bragg "stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda".