Donald Trump lost his immunity bid to avoid a lawsuit seeking to hold him responsible for violence during the Jan. 6 insurrection, and legal experts explained what that meant for the former president.
An appeals court rejected Trump's argument that he should be protected from lawsuits over the U.S. Capitol attack because he was president at the time, although the judges said that he could try to claim immunity again later in the case.
"Significant but limited ruling here: Trump cannot at this stage successfully argue immunity," said national security lawyer Bradley Moss. "The facts as alleged indicate he was not acting in his official capacity but rather as a candidate. This is huge. However, be warned: he might still win on the merits. But not yet."
"In retrospect, Trump blundered by serving up an imprudently broad argument: that he was entitled to immunity 'whenever [he] speaks on a matter of public concern,'" said legal expert Harry Litman.
"Trump's predictable line -- and he'll try to develop it in the civil case, but that will be a matter of years. Far more important is the issue in the Jan 6 trial, where I think this argument is very likely to lose. This is a big day for accountability and the rule of law."
The appeals court found that when a first-term president seeks a second term, his re-election campaign is not necessarily an official act.
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"This opinion is extremely strong; and importantly a death knell in the DC circuit for Trump's claim of presidential immunity in the J6 criminal case," said former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.
Legal experts said that allowing the civil lawsuit to move forward should not cause his criminal trials to be delayed.
"Trump no doubt will claim that Part III of op, allowing some civil discovery, means his J6 criminal trial should be delayed," said Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in the Obama administration. "But the criminal v civil standards are totally different & Trump of course already has access to criminal discovery. His criminal absolute immunity claim is bogus."
"Although this is the ruling in a civil case, the same argument, that candidate Trump isn't entitled to the immunity President Trump would be entitled to, should be persuasive in the criminal context as well," agreed former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance.
