Washington – The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will hear a legal battle over the breadth of a federal obstruction statute that has been used to prosecute scores of defendants for their alleged actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as former President Donald Trump.
A potential Supreme Court decision in the case, known as Fischer v. U.S., could have far-reaching implications, as the Justice Department has charged more than 300 people under the obstruction statute in cases related to 6 January.
Most notably, Special Counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with a single count of corruptly obstructing and impeding an official proceeding, namely Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results on 6 January. The former president has pleaded not guilty to this and the three other charges he faces in the case, which relates to the 2020 presidential election. A trial in Trump’s case is scheduled to begin in March.
Arguments before the Supreme Court will take place next year, with a decision that could threaten Trump’s impeachment expected by the end of June.
The Supreme Court case
The request for the Supreme Court’s intervention arose out of three criminal prosecutions in the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., of defendants charged with participating in the attack on the Capitol.
Each of the three men – Edward Lang, Garrett Miller and Joseph Fischer – was charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an official proceeding. The provision is part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 in the wake of the Enron scandal.
The US District Court granted Miller’s motion to dismiss the obstruction charge, finding that while the joint session of Congress on 6 January was an official proceeding, the conduct alleged in the indictment fell outside the scope of the statute. The provision, he said, was limited by language earlier in the statute and only applied if a defendant “took some action with respect to a document, record, or other object to corruptly obstruct, impede, or influence an official proceeding.”
Prosecutors did not allege that Miller “took any action with respect to any document, record, or other thing to corruptly obstruct, impede, or influence the congressional certification of the electoral vote,” the district court said.
The court applied its reasoning to dismiss the obstruction charges against Fischer and Lang, but the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the dismissals. A divided three-judge panel found that the statute “applies to all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding” and said the lower court erred in interpreting the provision to apply only to actions taken with respect to documents, records or other items.
During the appeals process, federal prosecutors dismissed one count of communicating a threat in interstate commerce against Miller, and he pleaded guilty to the remaining counts. Miller was sentenced to 38 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
The three defendants appealed the D.C. Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court, raising the question of whether their alleged conduct on 6 January falls within the scope of the obstruction statute. However, each has different arguments as to why their alleged actions do not fall under the law.
Others who entered the Capitol on 6 January and were prosecuted under the measure urged the Supreme Court to intervene. Courts, prosecutors and defence lawyers have “no clear guidance on the requirements or scope” of the obstruction law, lawyers for three other Capitol defendants told the justices in a filing.
They argued that none of the three judges on the D.C. Circuit, Judges Gregory Katsas, Justin Walker and Florence Pan, agreed on what conduct violated the statute, and warned that the law’s broad reading meant it would cover any unlawful act that could be linked to an official proceeding.
The Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to reject the cases, arguing in part that the obstruction provision is broad enough to cover the conduct of the January 6 rioters and encompasses conduct directed at the official proceeding itself, rather than at records or evidence that might be considered.
“It is therefore natural to say that a defendant obstructs an official proceeding by physically preventing it from taking place – as happened here when petitioners and others violently occupied the Capitol for several hours, thereby preventing the joint session of Congress from doing its work,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who is representing the government before the high court, wrote in a filing.
The Biden administration also warned that it was premature for the Supreme Court to get involved in the cases because neither Miller, Fischer nor Lang had been convicted of obstructing an official proceeding.