(The Washington Post) Federal prosecutors improperly charged a Jan. 6 defendant with obstruction, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, a decision that will likely upend many cases against rioters who disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election and which Donald Trump’s legal team may use to try to whittle down one of his criminal cases.
After the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors charged more than 350 participants in the pro-Trump mob with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding. The charge carries a 20-year maximum penalty and is part of a law enacted after the exposure of massive fraud and shredding of documents during the collapse of the energy giant Enron.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said prosecutors’ broad reading of the statute gives them too much discretion to seek a 20-year maximum sentence “for acts Congress saw fit to punish only with far shorter terms of imprisonment.”
It was not immediately clear what impact that decision may have on the pending case against Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican challenger to President Biden, for allegedly conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election results. Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the case against Trump, has previously argued that even if the Supreme Court ruled in this direction, the criminal charges against Trump would stand. Two of the four charges Trump faces are based on the obstruction statute at issue in the court’s decision.
Trump’s lawyers have filed a host of legal arguments seeking to get those charges thrown out of court, and it remains to be seen if they will try to use the Fischer v. United States decision to further those efforts. A Trump spokesman did not immediately comment on Friday’s ruling, but Trump posted “BIG WIN!” on social media shortly after the 6-3 decision was issued.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was disappointed with the ruling but insisted it was not a body blow to the overall investigation and prosecution of the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“January 6 was an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” Garland said in a written statement.
“The vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants charged for their illegal actions on January 6 will not be affected by this decision,” he added, noting that not a single Jan. 6 defendant was charged solely with the crime at issue in the Fischer case. “For the cases affected by today’s decision, the Department will take appropriate steps to comply with the Court’s ruling.”
