Justices dubious on Jan. 6 charges
Cases against Trump, rioters at stake
WASHINGTON » The Supreme Court cast doubt Tuesday on the legality of obstruction charges lodged against some 300 rioters arrested for breaking into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The court’s conservatives questioned whether the 2002 SarbanesOxley Act, which was aimed at corporate accounting fraud, can be used more broadly to prosecute those who obstruct “any official proceeding,” including Congress’ 2021 certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch noted that the law made it a crime to destroy or conceal documents to impair an “official proceeding,” but they voiced doubt over extending that to any disruptions of a proceeding.
If someone “pulls a fire alarm” to delay a vote in Congress, is that a federal felony subject to 20 years in prison?,” Gorsuch asked.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday was taking up the first of two cases that could affect the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn his election loss in 2020. Hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot also are at stake.
The justices were hearing arguments over the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. That charge, stemming from a law passed in the aftermath of the Enron financial scandal more than two decades ago, has been brought against 330 people, according to the Justice Department.
The court will consider whether it can be used against those who disrupted Congress’ certification of Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.
The former president and presumptive nominee for the 2024 Republican nomination is facing two charges in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington that could be knocked out with a favorable ruling from the nation’s highest court.
Next week, the justices will hear arguments over whether Trump has “absolute immunity” from prosecution
in the case, a proposition that has so far been rejected by two lower courts.
The first former U.S. president under indictment, Trump is on trial on hush money charges in New York and also has been charged with election interference in Georgia and with mishandling classified documents in Florida.
Ex-officer’s appeal
In Tuesday’s case, the court was hearing an appeal from Joseph Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer who has been indicted on seven counts, including obstruction, for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a bid to keep Biden, a Democrat, from taking the White House. Lawyers for Fischer argue that the charge doesn’t cover his conduct.
The obstruction charge, which carries up to 20 years behind bars, is among the most widely used felony charges brought in the federal prosecution following the deadly insurrection.
Roughly 170 Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted of obstructing or conspiring to obstruct the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, including the leaders of two far-right extremist groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. A number of defendants have had their sentencings delayed until after the justices rule on the matter.
Some rioters have won early release from prison while the appeal is pending over concerns that they might end up serving longer than they should have if the Supreme Court rules 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 last year to three years behind bars, but a judge recently ordered that he be released one year into his prison term while awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The high court case focuses on whether the anti-obstruction provision of a law that was enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp. can be used against Jan. 6 defendants.
Fischer’s lawyers argue that the provision was meant to close a loophole in criminal law and discourage the destruction of records in response to an investigation. Until the Capitol riot, they told the court, every criminal case using the provision had involved allegations of destroying or otherwise manipulating records.
But the administration says the other side is reading the law too narrowly, arguing it serves “as a catchall offense designed to ensure complete coverage of all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding,” including Fischer’s “alleged conduct in joining a violent riot to disrupt the joint session of Congress certifying the presidential election results.”
Smith has argued separately in the immunity case that the obstruction charges against Trump are valid, no matter the outcome of Fischer’s case.