U.S. President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 24, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
With all the ruin emanating from the Oval Office on a daily basis, it’s easy to fall into quiet despair. Following the news feels like monitoring a malignant tumor as it spreads outward from the epicenter of the free world, jumping oceans, URLs, and psyches, threatening the globe on macro and micro levels simultaneously. Only this sickness, this decidedly opportunistic cancer, has never been seen before. Certainly this level of rot has not been diagnosed in our 250 year history.
Trump’s singularly corrupt and destructive appetite, both fed and insulated by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, is hard to stomach. After SCOTUS handed criminal immunity to a psychopath, despondency set in as the world resentfully assumed that Trump would get away with his crimes against humanity forever.
Then, just there, on the unlit edge of the blackest cloud to have darkened the world in a very long time, a glimmering trace of silver peaked out. In a development that should have streaked across the headlines, but barely got a mention, a federal judge ruled that Trump will pay for at least one of his crimes: J6.
Trump will likely lose his ill-got gains
Measuring the amount of corruption lining Trump’s pocket is like shoveling on a snowy day. As of late January, Trump had pocketed upwards of $4 billion from untraceable crypto currency ventures, suspicious market manipulations, and outright bribery from foreign and domestic sources during his first year back in office. He’d better be thinking on how to hide it, because on March 31, 2026, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Trump. Is. Civilly. Liable for the damages he caused on January 6, 2021.
Judge Mehta’s cautious 79 page ruling (found here) denied Trump civil immunity through a careful analysis largely devoted to distinguishing between Trump’s criminal actions as an office-holder (official-acts immunity), and his actions in seeking office, which were not official acts and therefore are not immune. The decision carefully followed the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, and will allow claims against him from members of Congress and capital police officers to proceed to trial.
After a prior ruling that Trump’s speech on the Ellipse plausibly amounted to incitement, which is not protected under the First Amendment, Trump’s legal team sought to substitute the United States as the defendant under the Westfall Act, arguing that Trump’s acts fell within the scope of his employment as President. That motion was denied. The critical contextual question, following the 2023 decision in Blassingamev. Trump, was whether Trump was speaking or engaging in conduct “in an official capacity as office-holder or instead in an unofficial capacity as office-seeker.”
Applying the immunity ruling, the court observed that “many uses of the presidential bully pulpit fall comfortably within the outer perimeter of [the President’s] official responsibility” and are therefore immune. “The Court’s approach recognizes that presidential speech on matters of public concern will very often be official—and thus immunized.” But the immunity decision itself recognized that there may “be contexts in which the President, notwithstanding the prominence of his position, speaks in an unofficial capacity—perhaps as a candidate for office or party leader.” Trump, 603 U.S. at 629. Acting or campaigning to attain the Office of the President, is not an official function of the office.
Proving damages will be easy
The cause-damages link on J6 is obvious.
On December 19, 2020, Trump sent out a tweet targeting extremist groups, urging them to come to the U.S. Capitol to make their anger known about a “stolen” presidential election. In follow up communications, he teased a “wild” rally, and convinced 74 million supporters who had voted for him that their votes weren’t counted, which, predictably, angered them.
On Jan. 6, 2021, on the White House Ellipse where his summoned supporters gathered, Trump gave a fiery speech telling those in attendance, “We fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” He then urged them to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to “take back our country.”
Following Trump’s instructions, the summoned people then marched to the Capitol Building, which they breached with unprecedented political violence seen around the world. Although many people pleaded with Trump to stop the violence, he safely enjoyed it on TV for over three hours before he told rioters to stop.
At least seven people died from the attack.
Trump will bring this same contempt to the courtroom when he is personally sued for billions over J6, when he falsely brays, again, that he won in 2020. Juries don’t like him, most Americans don’t like him. He has assaulted women, stolen from our nation, and put our fragile democracy on life support. No verdict will be too high, and Americans are here for it.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.