WASHINGTON: The
Supreme Court
agreed on Wednesday to decide a question at the heart of the
federal election-interference case
against former President
Donald Trump
and hundreds of prosecutions arising from the
assault on the Capitol
on January 6, 2021, Can the government charge defendants in those cases under a federal law that makes it a crime to corruptly obstruct an official congressional proceeding?
The decision to hear the case will complicate and perhaps delay the start of Trump's trial, now scheduled to take place in March.
The SC's ultimate ruling, which may not arrive until June, could also severely limit efforts by special counsel Jack Smith to hold the former president accountable for the violence that his supporters committed at the Capitol.
The case the court agreed to hear involves Joseph Fischer. Prosecutors say he assaulted the police as Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 election. Like hundreds of other rioters whose actions disrupted the certification proceeding in the Capitol, Fischer was charged with the obstruction count.
When it was first passed in the early 2000s, the obstruction law was aimed at curbing corporate malfeasance by outlawing things like destroying documents or tampering with evidence. Defence lawyers representing January 6 rioters argue that prosecutors improperly stretched its scope to cover the violence that erupted at the Capitol and interfered with a proceeding in which lawmakers had gathered to certify the results of the 2020 election.
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