The ousting of Benjamin Netanyahu from the post of prime minister is no less than a game changer of galactic proportions for his public corruption trial.
As long as he was prime minister, he had a variety of potential extralegal exits from the trial to avoid prison even if the verdict went against him. All of those exits are now gone.
If he loses the trial, he will go to jail as surely as Ehud Olmert did when he was a former prime minister.
As long as he was prime minister, he could negotiate with the president for a pardon.
Until a few weeks ago, he could try to negotiate with future presidential candidates so that they would only receive his and the Likud’s support if the candidate guaranteed a pardon.
He lost that option when Isaac Herzog was elected. But it had been open to him for the last 27 months since Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit made his interim announcement about indicting Netanyahu.
While Netanyahu held the premiership, he had a chance at appointing a new state attorney who could have given him a lenient plea deal with no jail time even if he lost at trial.
This was not guaranteed, as he had granted the Blue and White Party equal control of the state attorney position.
But Netanyahu still had major influence over who would fulfill this post, which was apparent because he prevented Blue and White from appointing its choice, Amit Aisman, to the post in anything more than a temporary role.
Mandelblit could have blocked this until February 2022, when his term ends. But the trial will run far beyond February 2022.
When Netanyahu was prime minister, he would for sure have had powerful influence over who replaces Mandelblit in seven months.
A stalemate over the appointment also would have weakened whoever was in the acting attorney-general position and possibly pushed them to seek a deal with Netanyahu.
This did not happen regarding the state attorney position. But one reason was that Mandelblit himself could serve as acting state attorney if no one was picked, without worrying about his status.
The Supreme Court has two empty spots because Netanyahu helped block appointing replacements until he could control those choices.
Any future justice might sit on an appeals court panel from the verdict of Netanyahu’s trial.
Netanyahu could have conditioned those appointments on a commitment for a lenient ruling in such an appeal.
All of these exits are now gone.
For several months, Netanyahu refused to sign a conflict-of-interest arrangement that would have prevented him from abusing his power over such appointments until the Supreme Court ratified and gave effect to the arrangement.
Now, no arrangement is necessary.
Of course, if Netanyahu returns to the prime minister’s chair before a verdict (in the event he is convicted), he might still have a chance to have some impact on the process.
But in all likelihood, a new permanent state attorney and new attorney-general will be chosen and ratified before that happens.
If Netanyahu does return to power in six months or a year, you can bet that the incoming government will make sure it removes these potential parachutes before it goes down.
The three judges have acted unimpressed when Netanyahu has used theatrics in the courthouse.
But now they will feel more sure of themselves that he lacks the power to retaliate against them and the judiciary more broadly.
For the rest of the trial, Netanyahu is truly just another defendant who will need to win based on the evidence.