Donald Trump set a “trap door” – and he just fell right through it

When Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to swiftly rule on Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, I said it was all over for Trump right then and there. One scenario was that the Supreme Court would take up the matter and swiftly rule against Trump and then his trial would begin. The other scenario was that the Supreme Court would decline, the Court of Appeals would swiftly rule against Trump, then the Supreme Court would decline again, and then the trial would begin. It’s now clear that the second scenario is playing out roughly as expected.

Trump was forced to go into the Court of Appeals this week and make two fatally flawed arguments. One was that presidential immunity gave him the power to do anything he wanted, including murdering people. The other was that because he was already impeached for January 6th, he couldn’t also be criminally prosecuted for it. Both these arguments had 0% chance of working, and sure enough, they both bombed in court this week.

After the hearing, I wrote that this would make it impossible for the Supreme Court to bail Trump out even if it wanted to. Even this Supreme Court is not going to rule that the President has the legal right to murder people and such. And since Trump already argued that he couldn’t be impeached because he was going to end up criminally prosecuted, he was never going to get anywhere by turning around and arguing that he can’t be criminally prosecuted because he was impeached.

But it’s not just me who sees it this way. Legal expert Laurence Tribe now says that “Trump’s immunity claim set its own trap door — and proceeded to fall right through it.” That about sums it up. Trump can go into his political rallies, and even into political proceedings like impeachment, and get away with making gibberish arguments. But in an actual court, that never gets you anywhere. It’s just a way to guarantee you’ll lose.