The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the government cannot prosecute the Jan. 6 defendants under Section 1512(c)(2), the “Enron” statute, for generally disrupting an “official proceeding,” so long as they did not interfere with objects or documents.
The shocking ruling could lead to the overturning of hundreds of convictions against nonviolent defendants in the January 6 attacks and may also lead to at least some charges being dropped against President Donald Trump.
1512(c)(2) The law was passed after the Enron scandal, but it was discovered that there was a loophole in federal law: it was illegal to instruct others to destroy evidence, but not to destroy evidence yourself. As a result, Congress passed a law that prohibited tampering with witnesses or evidence used in an “official proceeding.” The Department of Justice used that law to prosecute participants in the Capitol storming based on the idea that they “disrupted” an official proceeding, namely the certification of the electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election. But critics said 1512(c)(2) was intended not to apply to protests or other First Amendment-related activities.
In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, overruling the (very anti-Trump) U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which said 1512(c)(2) cannot be applied as broadly as the Department of Justice had done.
“To prove a violation of section 1512(c)(2), the government must show that a defendant impaired or attempted to impair the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of a record, document, object, or other thing used in the proceeding, as described above,” Roberts wrote. The phrase “otherwise” cannot be used broadly enough to include trespass, meaning “otherwise obstructing, affecting, or impeding an official proceeding.”
To pursue an Enron prosecution, prosecutors would need to prove that the defendants not only breached the Capitol building but also obstructed the delivery of documents and items necessary for legal proceedings.
The Court remanded the case to the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, where petitioner Joseph Fisher is on trial for his role in the attack on the Capitol, including alleged physical violence against police. The Court instructed the District Court to take a narrower look at the § 1512(c)(2) case against Fisher.
Surprisingly, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the majority, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a dissenting opinion. Justice Barrett wrote, “Section 1512(c)(2) is an extremely broad provision, and events such as those of January 6th were certainly not within its scope. … But statutes often go beyond the issues that gave rise to them, and under the rules of statutory construction, we will follow the letter of the provision anyway,” and said that Fisher was properly prosecuted under the law.
President Trump faces four charges from Special Counsel Jack Smith case One lawsuit filed against him in Washington in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is based on 1512(c)(2) and could be dismissed based on the court’s ruling.
This incident Fisher v. United StatesNo. 23-5572, U.S. Supreme Court.
Joel B. Pollack is executive editor of Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday The show airs Sunday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. (4 to 7 p.m. ET) on SiriusXM Patriot. He recently published an e-book,Trumpian virtues: The lessons and legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency” is available on Audible. He is also the author of an e-book. Not Free or Fair: The 2020 US Presidential ElectionHe is the recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship in 2018. Follow him on Twitter. Joel Pollack.
