Hey, remember the insurrection trial that was on the federal calendar? Bring. It. On.

The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. declared today, in a unanimous ruling, that the coup plotter who sought to overthrow a free election is no different than any other accused criminal. He possesses no magical immunity powers, and thus he can be convicted by a jury of his peers and thrown in jail if the factual record warrants such punishment.

The judicial prose was naturally more majestic than my colloquial interpretation. For instance:

“(Trump’s) contention that he is entitled to categorical immunity from criminal liability for any assertedly ‘official’ action that he took as President (is) a contention that is unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution.”

Let’s see whether Trump’s Supreme Court allies can work their way around that. Predictably, he vowed today to appeal the appeal ruling, if only to fuel his desperate quest to delay the insurrection trial until after the election, but it’s clear, from my reading of today’s ruling, that the three federal appeals judges crafted it – veritably padlocked its logic – to withstand any high court sabotage. And this was surely not a difficult task, precisely because there isn’t a scintilla of evidence in law or in our founding document that a criminally indicted ex-president gets magically shielded. Reality is quite the opposite:

“Former President Trump’s alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, 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.”

Hmmm…that latter sentence…where have I seen that before…wait, I remember!

Last month, during the federal appeals court’s oral hearing, Judge Karen Henderson – the Republican appointee on the panel – said virtually the same thing: “I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ allows him to violate criminal law.”

Indeed, today’s written ruling, and Henderson’s January remark, echoed Tanya Chutkin, the federal judge who will preside over the insurrection trial. Back in December, when Chutkan tossed Trump’s immunity con in the trash, she wrote: “By definition, the president’s duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ does not grant special latitude to violate them.”

I’m seeing a pattern here – an impediment too high for Trump’s C-list lawyers to surmount.

Another delicious passage in today’s ruling caught my eye:

“(D)uring President Trump’s 2021 impeachment proceedings for incitement of insurrection, his counsel argued that instead of post-Presidency impeachment, the appropriate vehicle for investigation,
prosecution, and punishment” is the courts, because (in the Trump lawyer’s words) ‘we have a judicial process’ and ‘an investigative process…to which no former officeholder is immune…The text of the Constitution…makes very clear that a former President is subject to criminal sanction after his Presidency for any illegal acts he commits.'”

Well, there you have it. The federal appeals court has reminded us that one of Trump’s own lawyers (a guy now long gone from the team) declared during the impeachment-for-insurrection trial that it would be right and proper and constitutional to haul an ex-president into court for criminal acts.

And one particular passage in today’s ruling is clearly aimed at the U.S. Supreme Court, lest it be tempted to meddle on Trump’s behalf. It quotes a decision authored by…by the U.S. Supreme Court. Here’s what the supremes wrote in 1882:

“No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives.”

Today’s ruling is so thorough that (in a rational world) it gives the current high court ample opportunity to opt out, to let the appeals judges have the final word. This new passage in particular seems beyond dispute:

“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count…In so holding, we act, not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance.”

Let’s restart the clock on that insurrection trial. If the courts are indeed our last bulwark against encroaching MAGA fascism, now is the time. We cannot risk waiting any longer.