By Julie Hollar
Immediately after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, when little was known about the white male shooter (except that he was a registered Republican), right-wing politicians directly blamed Democratic rhetoric for the shooting.
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A three-judge panel from the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday unanimously ruled against former U.S. President Donald Trump's claims of immunity in a criminal case stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.
"For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution," states the 57-page opinion.
The panel included one judge appointed by former GOP President George H.W. Bush and two appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection this year. Trump is the Republican front-runner despite four ongoing criminal cases and arguments he is constitutionally disqualified from holding office again after engaging in insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Welcoming the development, the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington declared: "Donald Trump is not above prosecution. The law and the Constitution apply to him just like they apply to every other American. This is a major victory for our democracy and the rule of law."
Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, said: "Yet another court has recognized that Trump's immunity arguments are absurd and held that he can be prosecuted for actions, undertaken while president, that enabled the January 6 insurrection. This decision puts yet another period at the end of the statement, 'No one is above the law.'"
People for the American Way President Svante Myrick also praised the decision, saying that "the judges on the D.C. Circuit court got it right: No president can swear to uphold the laws of the land and then enjoy immunity if he breaks them. The idea is absurd on its face and Donald Trump's claim of immunity is a desperate attempt to avoid accountability for his actions."
"But make no mistake; this ruling is likely to make Trump even more desperate, as he tries to escape criminal prosecution by any means—including winning reelection to the presidency so he can make this prosecution go away," he warned. "Now is the time to double down on our work to make sure Trump is held accountable for his crimes, and that he never occupies the Oval Office again."
The ruling aligns with the panel's skepticism during arguments last month. When one judge had challenged the limits of immunity by asking Trump's attorney whether a president could "order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival," the lawyer responded that "he would have to be and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution."
The panel's decision comes after Judge Tayna Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia—who rejected Trump's immunity claim in December—last week postponed his election interference trial, which had been scheduled for March. Trump is expected to appeal Tuesday's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose right-wing supermajority includes three justices he appointed.
The mandate from the appellate court opinion denying Trump immunity "issues in six days on February 12," notedLos Angeles Times senior legal affairs columnist Harry Litman. "That's very quick and puts him in a box having to find a stay before then," from the full D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court, or Chutkan can proceed with the trial.
The high court in December rejected a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith—who is overseeing Trump's two federal cases rather than the U.S. Justice Department because of the November election—that the justices skip over the appeals court to swiftly settle the immunity debate.
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In 2016, despite his history of elitist, racist, and sexist behavior, failed businesses, lack of governing experience, and no demonstrated past of caring for anyone but himself, he won nearly 63 million votes. While still almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton got, it was not just enough for a victory in the Electoral College but a clear warning of things to come.
In 2020, after four years of non-stop chaos, the death of more than 200,000 Covid victims at least in part because of his mishandling of the pandemic, a legitimate and warranted impeachment, abuse of power, ceaseless corruption, and more than 30,000 documented public lies, he gained 74 million votes, even if, in the end, he lost the election.
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In fact, you can count on one thing: the 2024 election will not resolve the authoritarian attraction that the Trump vote represents. So perhaps it’s time to prepare now, not later, for the political crisis that will undoubtedly emerge from that event, whatever the vote count may prove to be.
And while he relishes castigating Biden’s cognitive state, it was Trump who only a few weeks ago, while giving a speech attacking the president’s capabilities, stated that he beat “Obama” in an election, that Americans needed IDs to buy bread, and that Biden would lead the country into “World War II,” which just happens to have ended 78 years ago. While some of Trump’s GOP opponents like Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley have indeed launched ageist attacks against him, it’s true that he’s roughly in the same age group as Biden.
Meanwhile, don’t forget that Donald Trump’s legal health is on life support. It’s a good bet that, in 2024, he will spend more time in courtrooms than on the campaign trail. He may very well face that moment of truth when he has to decide to cut a deal that keeps him out of prison and out of the White House.
In any case, the current trajectory remains Biden vs. Trump 2.0 while, whatever the outcome of the election, this nation seems to be headed for a crisis of historic proportions. No matter who wins, next November 7th will do nothing to end the divisions that exist in this country. In fact, it’s only likely to exacerbate and amplify them.
He is, in other words, already laying the foundation to claim election fraud and creating the basis for another MAGA revolt. While there’s plenty of reason to believe he won’t be able to draw tens of thousands of his supporters to attack the Capitol again, not the least being the Justice Department’s prosecution of hundreds of those who tried it the last time, he’ll certainly have GOP members in Congress ready to resist certifying a Democratic victory.
Trump’s desperation to win is driven not only by the prospect of multiple convictions in his various trials, drawn-out appeals (that are unlikely to be successful), and possible prison time of some sort, but also by the brutal public dismantling of what’s left of his financial empire.
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In his mind, a second term as president clearly has little to do with benefiting the country, the Republican Party, or even the rest of his family. It’s his only path to shutting down the two federal cases against him in Florida and Washington, D.C. However, even such a win wouldn’t help him with the election interference case in Georgia or the hush-money criminal case in New York. Convictions in either of those would mean further accountability sooner or later. A second term would undoubtedly offer him another chance to monetize the presidency, just as he did the first time around, in a fashion never before seen.
His record is still being investigated but, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Trump raked in tens of millions of dollars that way. It reports that Trump’s businesses took in more than $160 million from international sources alone, and a grand total of more than $1.6 billion from all sources, during his presidency. As CREW put it: “Trump’s presidency was marred by unprecedented conflicts of interest arising from his decision not to divest from the Trump Organization, with his most egregious conflicts involving businesses in foreign countries with interests in U.S. foreign policy.”
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Trump’s legitimate fear of losing is pushing him toward ever more strident and violent language. He’s also signaling to his followers that the use of force to put him in power (or go after those who deny it to him) is all too acceptable. His visit to the Palmetto State Armory gun shop in Summerville, South Carolina, on September 25th was an unambiguous message to them: get ready for war.
There, he admired a Glock pistol and was visibly eager to purchase it. However, he ran into a legal snafu. His spokesperson, Steven Cheung, initially posted a video on social media celebrating Trump’s purchase of the Glock, a special “Trump edition” that had a likeness of him and the words “Trump 45th” etched on it. According to the New York Times, Trump gleefully said, “I want to buy one.”
However, after a staff member apparently realized that no one under federal indictment could legally do so, the post was deleted and a subsequent statement was put up that read, “President Trump did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. He simply indicated that he wanted one.” The store would also have been liable under federal law 18 U.S.C. 922, given that it would have been hard for its proprietors to deny that they knew the former president was under multiple indictments.
That visit was more than just a message to his followers to arm themselves. There are 158 gun stores in South Carolina and yet Trump selected the very one linked to a mass killing of Black people in Florida.
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The shooter had two guns, a Glock and an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, one of them from the South Carolina Palmetto State Armory gun store. Palmeter also left behind several racist manifestos.
That carnage occurred just a month before Trump’s visit and his implicit decision to associate himself with that explosion of bigoted violence — like an earlier trip to Waco, Texas, the site of a deadly gunfight between federal law enforcement agents and antigovernment extremists — helped reinforce the idea on the far right that violent force is acceptable for political ends. In his speech at Waco, his first “official” campaign rally for election 2024, Trump stated, “I am your warrior, I am your justice… For those who have been wronged and betrayed… I am your retribution.”
The chaos and disorder likely to follow any Trump loss in 2024 will only be further enhanced if the GOP keeps control of the House of Representatives or wins control of the Senate. A number of congressional Republicans have shown that they will not hesitate to do all they can to put Trump back in the White House, including igniting a constitutional crisis by refusing to certify Electoral College votes.
All that said, Trump losing and sending his supporters into the streets amid tantrums by congressional Republicans and Republican state governors and legislatures would hardly be the worst possible scenario.
After all, if Trump were to win, the extremists in and out of government would immediately be empowered to carry out the most right-wing agenda since the height of the segregationist era. A reelected Trump will find the most loyal (to him) and corruptible cabinet members possible. Their only necessary qualification will be a willingness to follow his orders without hesitation, whether or not they’re legal, ethical, or by any stretch of the imagination good for the country.
Count on one thing: it wouldn’t be an America First but a Trump First and Last administration.
He would undoubtedly engage in a series of personal vendettas with the sort of viciousness and resolve never before seen in Washington. He would take a victory, no matter how marginal or questionable, in the Electoral College as a mandate to attack all his perceived enemies with whatever power his new presidency could muster. He’s also well aware of a Department of Justice policy (of questionable legality) not to prosecute a sitting president, which he’ll interpret as a license of perpetual lawlessness. Trump’s persecution administration would harken back to the worst days of McCarthyism and beyond.
And lest you think that’s the end of the matter, it only gets worse.
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Beyond Trump’s individual sociopathic behavior, a far-right agenda is being created that will provide a certain ideological clarity to his bumbling authoritarianism. The policy work, not just from the Trump campaign but from Project 25, should scare everyone. A $22 million initiative by the rightwing Heritage Foundation, Project 25 has already produced a 920-page book, Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise, detailing plans to reshape the federal government. If implemented, its strategy would write “the end” to the classic separation of powers, checks and balances, and even a non-partisan civil service. Every single federal department and agency would instead be restructured to fall under the complete control of the president.
It also offers hundreds of new policies on issues ranging from the environment and labor rights to education and health care. Its underlying assumption: that, post-2024, a conservative president will be in power for some time to come. (If so, Trump will, of course, have the backing of Republicans in Congress, who again may control one or both chambers, and a 6-3 Supreme Court majority.)
Count on this: resistance will be swift, massive, and enduring. Trump and Republican minority rule would not go unchallenged and the repression sure to follow would only generate yet more resistance and, undoubtedly, a generation of political turbulence.
On the other hand, a significant electoral defeat for the Republicans and Trump (along with his conviction on any number of criminal charges) would certainly prove a major obstacle to future authoritarianism. However, tens of millions of his voters will not go quietly into the night, while far-right elected officials in Congress and state legislatures will continue to push extreme conservative policies. White nationalists and radical evangelicals will mobilize as best as they can. Financial and political resources will be available.
The effort to defeat MAGA at all levels and in all ways politically will go on, but progressives need to prepare for the challenge of 2024 and the perilous years to follow.
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