Obstruction charge takes center stage at Jan. 6 court hearing
Prosecutors and defense lawyers squared off Monday at a federal appeals court hearing in Washington over the use of a criminal charge whose viability could affect the cases of hundreds of people indicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — and could help decide what, if any, charges could ultimately be brought against former President Donald Trump.
The charge at the center of the arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was the obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress.
The Justice Department has used the count in scores of Capitol riot cases to describe how a pro-Trump mob disrupted the central event Jan. 6: the certification of the 2020 election that took place during a joint session of Congress.
Defense lawyers want the appeals court to rule that the count has been applied incorrectly by the Justice Department and dismiss it from all the Jan. 6 cases in which it has been charged.
The arguments presented at the 90-minute hearing, while highly technical, hit on a critical issue that has shaped the contours of the government’s vast investigation of Jan. 6. That issue was how prosecutors in hundreds of cases have decided between charging people with petty offenses such as trespassing or disorderly conduct, which carry a maximum of six months in jail, or the much more serious obstruction count, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
During the hearing, a prosecutor, James Pearce, argued in favor of the obstruction charge, saying that it had been properly applied in nearly 300 Jan. 6 criminal cases. The law requires proving that any interference with a congressional proceeding be done “corruptly,” and Pearce argued that in cases in which the charge has been used, defendants committed other “corrupt” acts such as destroying government property or assaulting police officers.
If the three-member panel of the court finds in favor of the defense, it would be a devastating blow to the government’s attempts to hold the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol accountable for the attack. An adverse ruling would force prosecutors to scramble for a replacement charge or accept the lower sentences attached to lesser charges.
It could also have a crippling effect on the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump’s role in overturning the election.
Given that a federal judge in California and the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 have both said there is evidence that Trump is guilty of obstruction of Congress, legal experts have argued that if the former president is prosecuted in connection with Jan. 6, he is likely to face the obstruction count.
The charge — formally known in the penal code as 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) — was never a perfect fit for the many cases stemming from the Capitol attack. It was passed into law as part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which sought to clamp down on corporate malfeasance.