Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe called the indictment against Donald Trump “brilliant,” but said there’s one factor that could render the whole thing moot: Timing.

“I do think that [Attorney General] Merrick Garland did not proceed as fast as he might have,” Tribe said on MSNBC on Tuesday evening.

As a result, the case against Trump over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol could drag on into the next presidency.

“If the next presidency is held either by Donald Trump or by one of his acolytes or by virtually any Republican, there is the horrible prospect that this will all be wiped away,” he said. “And that it will be relegated to a kind of a historic footnote.”

Tribe said it’s a reminder of how “vulnerable and fragile” the legal system is.

“We have a system that might go too slowly, that might be too opaque,” he said. “And a system that is not at all guaranteed to triumph over politics.”

See his full discussion with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell below: