Donald Trump denied absolute immunity, could be imprisoned for inciting riot at Capitol Hill

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Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution for the alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

The unanimous ruling, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, dealt a major blow to Trump's defense team. Now, instead of continuing his pursuit of the Oval Office, the former president could serve a lengthy jail sentence.

“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,” the court wrote.

Unsurprisingly, the ruling did not go over well with Trump, and he is expected to appeal the decision.

“President Trump respectfully disagrees with the DC Circuit’s decision and will appeal it in order to safeguard the Presidency and the Constitution,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said.

The court is giving Trump until February 12 to file an emergency stay request with the Supreme Court, which would essentially buy his attorneys more time to craft a more substantive defense.

If proven guilty, the court wrote, Trump’s efforts to usurp the 2020 presidential election would be an “unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.”

“It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity,” the court wrote.

Trump faces four counts from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges, including conspiring to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding.

The charges stem from Trump's encouragement of the riot at Capitol Hill on January 6 that Smith described as an "unprecedented assault" on democracy.

"It was fueled by lies: Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government — the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election," Smith said.

According to the indictment, Trump was "determined to remain in power." So, for over two months after the election, Trump "spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won," the indictment states, and adds, "These claims were false, and the defendant knew they were false," but "repeated and widely disseminated them anyway."

Now, three years removed from the Capitol Hill riot, Trump may suffer the consequences of vocalizing his displeasure about losing the election.

With immunity out of the question, Trump's defense team will have to work even harder to keep him from behind bars.