Donald Trump has lived 77 years on this earth thinking he’s completely untouchable. Time and again, history has proven him right. He’s been dodging charges for any number of crimes for decades now, but his dodging days may finally be over. After touting his “presidential immunity” for years, claiming it can protect him from every crime he committed while in office, Trump is in the midst of a brutal wake up call.
The former president is not immune from prosecution for any crimes he may have committed while in office, a federal appeals court ruled on Feb. 6. Trump can be tried and found guilty of any crimes he may have been involved in while trying to overturn the 2020 election ⏤ news that could derail the 77-year-old’s presidential bid.
A panel of three judges — J. Michelle Childs, Karen LeCraft Henderson, and Florence Pan — found that, at least for the purposes of the election interference case, “former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant.” The judges added that “any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”
Trump’s been riding high on his own fiction for years now, and a major lynchpin to all that confidence was his supposed immunity. Now that’s set to come crashing down, forcing the former president to face a harsh new reality: he’s as mortal as any of us. The leaders chosen in the United States are subject to the same laws as its regular citizens once they’re out of office, and now Trump has to face the fact that that’s exactly what he is: not a king, not a dictator, but regular.
Trump and his legal team will likely challenge the ruling, but given its unanimous nature, they’re unlikely to get very far. This leaves Trump with a laundry list of fresh issues on his already overstuffed plate, which is likely to upset other MAGA Republicans and spawn a whole new slew of hateful rhetoric. Then again, maybe that’s why Marjorie Taylor Greene is busy yelling about what grown men do in bathrooms instead of putting down the BBQ and actually helping her Georgia constituents.