Washington — The Supreme Court is set to consider the boundaries of a federal obstruction statute utilized to prosecute hundreds of individuals who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This legal dispute could potentially impact the case involving former President Donald Trump's alleged interference in the election.
The focal point of the case before the court, known as Fischer v. U.S., revolves around the question of whether federal prosecutors have the authority to apply a law enacted after the Enron scandal to the events of Jan. 6. The law criminalizes the "corrupt" obstruction or hindrance of an official proceeding, with defense lawyers contending that the Justice Department has extended the statute beyond its intended scope.
The initial provision of the law prohibits the alteration, destruction, mutilation, or concealment of a document. Prior to the Capitol breach, prosecutors had never invoked this statute in cases unrelated to evidence tampering. However, following the unprecedented attack on the Capitol, over 330 defendants who participated in the breach have been charged under this law, as they unlawfully entered the building during a joint session of Congress to certify the electoral votes.
Trump, who entered a plea of not guilty, is facing charges related to obstructing Congress' counting of Electoral College votes and conspiring to obstruct the proceeding. Special counsel Jack Smith brought two additional charges against him in Washington, D.C. last year.
This case's outcome is closely monitored due to its potential impact on the charges against Trump. These charges are based on Smith's assertion of a multi-faceted scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. If the court rules in favor of Fischer, Trump might move to dismiss the two obstruction-related counts.
Trump's case has been on hold for several months as he pushes to have all four charges dismissed, citing presidential immunity. The Supreme Court is set to review this issue next week.
Aside from Trump, the obstruction debate could impact individuals convicted or who have pleaded guilty to the offense on January 6. A ruling against the prosecutors' broad interpretation of the law could lead to requests for retrials or reduced sentences.
The Jan. 6 case
Joseph Fischer, a former police officer in Pennsylvania, found himself at the center of a case brought before the Supreme Court. He was charged in a seven-count indictment in early 2021 after attending the "Stop the Steal" rally outside the White House and later entering the Capitol around 3:25 p.m. Prosecutors claimed he encouraged rioters to "charge" and ran into a line of officers while yelling an obscenity.
However, Fischer's defense team argued that he was pushed by the crowd into a police line and was in the Capitol for less than four minutes.
Among the charges Fischer faced was assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct, and corruptly obstructing, influencing, and impeding an official proceeding — Congress' certification of the Electoral College vote. The charge, enacted as part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Fischer sought to dismiss the obstructing charge, and U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols granted his request. Judge Nichols determined that the indictment did not allege that Fischer took any action with respect to a document, record, or other object to obstruct the congressional proceedings.
The Justice Department appealed Nichols' ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ruled against Fischer in a divided decision last year.
In the lead opinion, Judge Florence Pan acknowledged that outside of the Jan. 6 cases, there was no precedent for using the obstruction statute to prosecute conduct like Fischer's. Still, she concluded that the district court wrongly adopted a narrow interpretation of the law that limited its application to obstructive conduct involving a document or record.
Pan noted that 14 of 15 district judges in D.C. adopted a broader reading of the statute and called their near-unanimity "striking."
Key to the ruling was the interpretation of the word "otherwise," which Pan wrote meant that the second of the provision's two sections applies to "all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding," outside of what is covered by the first section.
Lawyers for Fischer asked the Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit's decision, and it agreed to do so in December.
In filings with the high court, defense attorneys urged the justices to narrow the scope of the law, arguing it targets "discrete acts intended to affect the availability of evidence" used in an official proceeding.
Congress, they said, intended to protect the integrity of investigations and evidence when lawmakers wrote the measure after the Enron scandal. Defense attorneys also warned that without limiting the reach of the obstruction law, its scope is "breathtaking" and unconstitutional.
"Anything that affects or hinders a proceeding falls within the government's definition," they wrote. "But that definition encompasses lobbying, advocacy, and protest, the very mechanisms that citizens employ to influence government."
The Justice Department, though, said the text, context and history of the provision shows it broadly bars a person from corruptly engaging in conduct to obstruct court, agency and congressional proceedings.
Accepting Fischer's argument, wrote Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in a Supreme Court brief, "would undermine Congress's effort to prohibit unanticipated methods of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding — such as petitioner's alleged conduct in joining a violent riot to disrupt the joint session of Congress certifying the presidential election results."
Prelogar refuted warnings from Fischer's attorneys that if interpreted broadly, the law would be used to prosecute constitutionally protected conduct like lobbying or peaceful protests. Instead, she said the statute is limited to acts that hinder a proceeding, and advocacy like lobbying or presenting oral argument before a court don't qualify.
"The text of the provision resolves this case, and there is no basis to insert language into the statute that Congress did not write," she argued, noting that it functions as a "catchall offense" designed to cover all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding.
The impacts of a decision
The Supreme Court said in December it would take up the case, and its decision to do so reverberated swiftly. Some defendants who were convicted of violating the obstruction statute but not yet sentenced sought to pause their proceedings until the justices rule, likely by the end of June.
Should Fischer emerge victorious and the supreme tribunal determine that the statute pertains narrowly to corrupt evidence-related behavior, there may be a multitude of defendants who have been found guilty and opt for resentencing, retract their guilty pleas, or request a new trial.
Regarding the repercussions on Trump's situation, the special counsel conveyed to the Supreme Court in a submission in the immunity lawsuit last week that irrespective of the court's decision, the accusations against Trump remain legitimate.
Smith has alleged that Trump deceptively orchestrated counterfeit slates of electors in seven pivotal states and encouraged state officials to dispatch the fraudulent certifications to Congress. The formulation of the bogus documents, he contended, "meets the criteria for an evidence-tampering interpretation."
