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The Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to hear a case that could change the charges of hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and postpone – or limit the scope – of the former President Donald J. Trump in court on federal charges trying to overcome his election loss.
The issue is whether the government can prosecute those accused in cases under the law of the government which makes it a crime to obstruct an official procedure. The law is at the heart of the prosecution of many members of the lobby who tried to block congressional confirmation of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. in 2020. It is also an important part of the federal indictment accusing Mr. Trump is a conspiracy to stay in power despite the will of the electorate.
The decision to hear the case will be complicated and may delay the start of Mr. Trump, which is scheduled to be held in Washington in March. The final decision of the Supreme Court, which may not come until June, is likely to resolve the validity of the two main charges against Mr. Trump. And it could seriously hamper the efforts of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to make the former president answer to the violence of his supporters in the Capitol.
The final decision of the court may cancel the charges that have been approved against many of Mr.’s followers. Trump joined the assault. This is a big blow to the government in the charges of rioting on January 6.
The case the court agreed to hear included Joseph Fischer, who was indicted on seven counts for his role in the Capitol attack. Prosecutors say he assaulted police while Congress was meeting to approve the results of the 2020 election. Like hundreds of other rioters whose actions disrupted the certification at the Capitol, Mr. Fischer was charged with harassment, known as 18 USC 1512.
Mr. requested Fischer dismissed part of the charge brought under the accident law, which was passed as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a law that specifically applies to crime. Prosecutors have often used the term terrorism, in place of more political cases such as rebellion or conspiracy, to describe how members of the anti-Trump movement disrupted the peaceful transition. the power of the president.
Last year, Judge Carl J. Nichols of the Federal District Court in Washington accepted Mr. Fischer disagrees, saying the law requires defendants to take “an act related to a document, record or other thing” — something he said. missing from the behavior of Mr. Fischer at the Capitol.
A three-judge panel divided on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ultimately reversed Judge Nichols’ decision, holding that the law “relates to all forms of corruption that prevent no official procedure.” The three protesters on January 6, including Mr. Fischer, eventually asked the Supreme Court to decide whether the law was effective in the Capitol attack.
The charge of interference was not easy to fit in the cases that originated from the storm of the Capitol. When it was passed in the early 2000s, the law was aimed at preventing the corruption of companies by punishing things like the destruction of documents or the manipulation of evidence or witnesses.
Defense attorneys on behalf of the rioters on January 6 argued that it was inappropriate for the prosecutors to expand their scope to cover the riots that broke out in the Capitol. and interfered with the process where the politicians gathered to approve the results of the election.
Lawyers also criticized the use of the charge against the people who attacked the Capitol, saying that many were not engaged in “corrupt actions,” as required by law, because they believed they were protesting a stolen vote.
“The law was used to punish the January 6 case,” said Norm Pattis, a lawyer for Jake Lang, one of the three defendants who appealed to the Supreme Court. “Congress didn’t expect that.”
Said Mr. Pattis, the review of the Supreme Court is “important” in the hundreds of criminal cases caused by the violence in the Capitol and “another reason why the 2024 case against Donald Trump should be postponed.”
There are two charges of interference in the federal elections against Mr. Trump is based on the charge of the accident. He is accused of interfering with the certification process at the Capitol on January 6, and he is also accused of another charge of conspiracy and others to interfere with the proceedings.
The review of the Supreme Court, although it may affect the charge, but it will not affect the other two charges against Mr. Trump. One has accused him of conspiring to defraud the United States by using repeated lies that the election was stolen from him in an attempt to reverse his defeat. Another has charged him with conspiring to deprive millions of Americans of the right to have their ballots counted.
But if the Supreme Court finds that the harassment law does not apply to mob attacks on the Capitol, Mr. Smith to attach the tension to Mr. Trump.
Recent court documents in the election case strongly suggest that prosecutors are planning to use the sedition charge as a way to get the footage of the Capitol attack and possibly the also showed that the witnesses of the rioters said that they attacked the house on the order of Mr. Trump. .
The possibility that the Supreme Court can review – and one day it will not work – the crisis that has been threatened on the election case of Mr. Trump for months. But the court’s decision to act on Wednesday came at a very difficult time: two days after Mr. Smith judge to speed up an appeal of various efforts of Mr. Trump to abandon the case on the broad claims of the protection of the president.
Although the Supreme Court has not decided whether it will consider the argument of Mr. Trump on the defensive, but – within a week – has become very involved in the process of disrupting the elections. His decisions on the charge of the accident and protection can significantly change the shape, scope and time of the case, which has long been likely to be the first of four charges facing Mr. Trump goes before a jury.
State’s Attorney Elizabeth B. Prelogar urged the justices to reject the case, saying the statute is broad enough to allow it. Mr. Fischer’s actions even if no papers or other materials were involved.
“The defendant obstructs an official proceeding by physically preventing it from happening – as happened here when petitioners and others occupied the Capitol for several hours and prevented a joint session of Congress from not doing his job,” he wrote.
He added that the documents are in the case in any case.
“Preventing members of Congress from certifying state certificates is an evidence-based intervention,” he wrote, adding that the review was quick. “At a minimum, the government should be allowed to present its case to the jury and prove that the petitioners obstructed a proceeding by (in part) preventing the appropriate decision-makers from viewing the evidence at the time and place specified for that purpose.”
Regardless of the decision of the Supreme Court, the lawyers of Mr. Trump’s decision to review the impeachment charge strengthens their argument that the trial in Washington should be postponed, perhaps until after the 2024 presidential election.
From the beginning of the case, Mr. Trump has an ongoing plan of delay. If he can push the court until after the election and win the race, he will be in a position to just order the charges against him to be dropped.