There is, however, another potential avenue for accountability: a series of civil lawsuits filed against Trump. The president and his lawyers have long insisted that he should be immune from the suits, but a federal judge came to a very different conclusion. Roll Call reported:

President Donald Trump must still face civil lawsuits seeking to hold him accountable for his role in the lead up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a long-running litigation from Democratic House members and Capitol Police officers.

Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in an opinion found that a range of actions Trump took leading up to the attack did not qualify for the legal immunity presidents have for official acts.

The judge ruled there are some official acts from Jan. 6 for which he cannot be held liable in civil cases, but the president’s remarks at the Ellipse, shortly before the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, are fair game — because, as Mehta concluded, they can “plausibly” be seen as remarks that incited violence.

This was clearly not the outcome Trump was hoping for. By the same token, this was excellent news for those who filed the cases against the president, including police officers who were injured during the violence on Jan. 6. Among the civil lawsuits:

In March 2021, two Capitol Police officers, James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, sued Trump, claiming he was liable for the injuries they suffered during the riot.

In August 2021, seven more police officers who were attacked and beaten during the Capitol riot sued the former president.

In January 2022, three more police officers, including two who aided the evacuation of lawmakers, sued Trump, seeking damages for their physical and emotional injuries.

In January 2023, the longtime partner of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after Jan. 6, filed a wrongful death civil suit against Trump.

The cases were ultimately consolidated.

Time will tell what becomes of the litigation as the process advances, but if the plaintiffs ultimately succeed, the cases have the potential to be politically embarrassing and financially costly for the president. They won’t have the impact of a criminal trial, but let’s not forget that Trump has suffered several major legal setbacks and defeats in recent years — the E. Jean Carroll case, the Trump Organization’s fraud case, the demise of his fraudulent charity, the demise of his fraudulent “university,” et al. — and those were all civil cases.