Charges against Trump and Jan. 6 rioters at stake as Supreme Court hears debate over obstruction law
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear the first of two cases that could impact the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. There are also hundreds of pending charges stemming from the riot at the Capitol.
The judges will hear arguments on the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. The charges, which stem from a law passed more than two decades ago in the wake of the Enron financial scandal, have been filed against 330 people, according to the Justice Department. The court will consider whether it can be used against those who disrupted Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
The former president and presumptive candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination faces two charges in the case brought by Washington special counsel Jack Smith, which could be dismissed with a favorable ruling from the nation’s highest court. Next week, the justices will hear arguments on whether Trump has “absolute immunity” from prosecution in the case, a proposal that has so far been rejected by two lower courts.
The first former US president to be indicted, Trump is on trial on hush money charges in New York and has also been accused of election interference in Georgia and of mishandling classified documents in Florida.
In Tuesday’s case, the court is hearing an appeal from Joseph Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer charged on seven counts, including obstruction, for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. an attempt to prevent Biden, a Democrat, from winning the White House. Attorneys for Fischer argue the charges do not cover his conduct.
The obstruction charge, which carries up to 20 years in prison, is one of the top felony charges filed in the massive federal prosecution following the deadly riot.
About 170 January 6 defendants have been convicted of obstructing or conspiring to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6, including the leaders of two far-right extremist groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. The sentences of a number of defendants have been postponed until after the judge has ruled on the case.
Some rioters have even been granted early release from prison while the appeal is still pending because they feared they would have to serve longer than they should if the Supreme Court ruled against the Justice Department. That includes Kevin Seefried, a Delaware man who threatened a black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the Capitol. Seefried was sentenced to three years in prison last year, but a judge recently ordered him to serve a year in prison pending the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The Supreme Court case focuses on whether the anti-obstruction provision of a law enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that engulfed Enron Corp. overturned, can be used against the defendants of January 6.
Fischer’s lawyers argue that the provision was intended to close a loophole in criminal law and discourage the destruction of documents in response to an investigation. Until the Capitol riot, they told the court, every criminal case using the provision had involved allegations of destruction or other tampering with documents.
But the government says the other side is interpreting the law too narrowly, arguing that it serves “as a collective offense designed to ensure full coverage of all forms of corrupt obstruction of official proceedings,” including the “alleged conduct of Fischer by joining a violent riot to disrupt the joint session of Congress certifying the presidential election results.”
Smith has separately argued in the immunity case that the obstruction charges against Trump are valid regardless of the outcome of Fischer’s case.
Most lower court judges who weighed in have upheld the charges. Among them, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote that “statutes often extend beyond the primary evil that animated them.”
But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, another Trump appointee, dismissed the charges against Fischer and two other defendants, writing that prosecutors went too far. A divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington reinstated the indictment before the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
While not important to the Supreme Court case, the two sides present starkly different stories about Fischer’s actions on January 6. Fischer’s lawyers say he was “not part of the mob” that forced lawmakers to flee the House of Representatives and the Senate. he entered the Capitol after Congress adjourned. The weight of the crowd pushed Fischer into a line of police officers, they said in a court filing.
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia are among 23 Republican members of Congress who say the administration’s use of the obstruction charge “poses an intolerable risk.” of politicized prosecutions. Only a clear rebuke from this Court can stop the madness.”
The Justice Department says Fischer can be heard on a video shouting “Charge!” shouts. before pushing through a crowd and ‘bumping into the police line’. Prosecutors also cite text messages Fischer sent before Jan. 6 in which he said things could turn violent, and social media posts after the riot in which he wrote “we pushed the police back about 25 feet.”
More than 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. About 1,000 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury or judge after a trial.
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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington and Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, contributed to this report.