The decision could be used as fodder for claims by former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies that the Justice Department has treated the Capitol riot defendants unfairly
on Friday made it harder to charge Capitol riot defendants with obstruction, a charge used in hundreds of prosecutions and also faced by former President Donald Trump.that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding, enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp., must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents.
Reading the obstruction statute broadly “would also criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists to decades in prison,” Roberts wrote.Barrett, one of three justices appointed by Trump, wrote that the law clearly encompasses the events of Jan. 6. “The riot forced Congress to suspend the proceeding, delaying it for several hours,” she wrote.
“January 6 was an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” he said. “We will continue to use all available tools to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on our democracy.”
Most lower court judges who have weighed in have allowed the charge to stand. Among them, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote that “statutes often reach beyond the principal evil that animated them.”
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