Hundreds of people who participated in the assault on the Capitol have been charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an official proceeding. The official act disrupted was the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Former US President Donald Trump is charged with that offence in the Washington criminal case for his own attempts to overturn the election result. However, the Supreme Court has now ruled in the case Fischer vs. the United States which disallows the application of the rule in cases like this. After this Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, it is a new triumph for Trump, who is still waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling on his presidential immunity, expected for Monday.
“To prove a violation of the [artículo en cuestión] “The Government must establish that the accused impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official procedure of records, documents, objects or other things used in an official procedure, or attempted to do so,” says the Supreme Court in a ruling that has been approved by six votes to three, but without fully aligning by ideology. A conservative judge, Amy Coney Barrett, has voted against and a progressive judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, in favor. That is to say, assaulting Congress is not obstruction of an official procedure, because it does not imply destruction of evidence or anything similar.
The Supreme Court has ruled on an appeal by Joseph Fischer, a defendant accused of participating in the assault on the Capitol on several charges, but its doctrine extends to all those accused and convicted of the same offense for the revolt to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.
During the oral hearing of the case, the conservative judges already questioned whether an article that was drafted within a law intended to punish the destruction of evidence in financial crimes could be applied to what they called political “protests.” They pointed out that opening that door meant granting a license to the Prosecutor’s Office to pursue any protests it considered. Some also implied that this rule had never been applied in that sense.
“The Government’s theory would also criminalize a wide swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and pressure groups to decades in prison,” the ruling now says. “The government’s interpretation would give prosecutors broad discretion to seek a maximum sentence of 20 years for acts that Congress saw fit to punish with much shorter sentences,” he adds.
Trump did not directly participate in the assault on the Capitol, but his attempts to obstruct the official procedure for proclaiming Biden’s victory in the elections were carried out through other means. However, the Supreme Court doctrine can free him from two of the four crimes for which he is accused in the Washington case for attempting to alter the electoral result of the 2020 elections.
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The four crimes he is accused of in this case are: conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to violate civil rights. The second and third crimes correspond to the criminal offense analyzed by the Supreme Court and its decision greatly complicates the success of these two charges against Trump.
The wording of the article seemed to cover the interruption of a procedure such as the certification of Biden’s victory, as the progressive judges stressed, but the place where it is located, among rules intended to avoid the destruction of evidence, led to doubting the spirit with which was regulated. The Supreme Court considers that rules with imprecise wording must be applied restrictively.
The crime in question is contemplated in the United States penal code in article 1512 of the US Code 18, which indicates in its letter (c)(2) that whoever destroys evidence or “otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding, or attempt to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” However, the headline of that provision is: “Interference on a witness, victim or informant.” That article was passed as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley law of 2002, aimed at prosecuting white-collar crimes. In the English original, furthermore, there are several words that leave room for interpretation and the Supreme Court focuses on the fact that “otherwise” cannot be interpreted extensively.
The sentence of Fischer case will affect dozens of those convicted in connection with the Capitol assault. At least 353 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so, according to a recent Justice Department tally. It is one of the most widely used criminal charges against those who stormed the Capitol.
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