US Supreme Court raises bar for obstruction charge against Trump, Jan. 6 rioters

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court raised the legal bar on Friday for prosecutors pursuing obstruction charges in the federal election subversion case against Donald Trump and defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The justices ruled 6-3 to throw out a lower court’s decision that had allowed a charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding — congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump that the rioters tried to block — against defendant Joseph Fischer, a former police officer.

The court, in the decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, took a narrow view of the obstruction statute, saying that prosecutors must show that a defendant “impaired the availability or integrity” of documents or other records related to an official proceeding – or attempted to do so.

Roberts was joined by fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Roberts rejected the Justice Department’s more expansive reading of what constitutes obstruction, calling it “a novel interpretation (that) would criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison.”

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a dissent, joined by liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Fischer had challenged the obstruction charge, which federal prosecutors brought against him and hundreds of others – including Trump – in Jan. 6-related cases.

The lower court was directed to reconsider the matter in light of Friday’s ruling.

The ruling was a potential boost for Trump, the Republican candidate challenging Biden, a Democrat, in the Nov. 5 U.S. election.

Trump was hit with two obstruction-related charges as part of a four-count criminal indictment in a case brought last year by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The crime falls under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a federal law passed after the accounting fraud scandal at now-defunct energy company Enron.

Federal prosecutors have accused Trump of pressuring government officials to overturn the 2020 election results and encouraging his supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to push Congress not to certify Biden’s victory, based on false claims of widespread voting fraud. On the day Congress met to certify the results, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, broke through barricades, attacked police officers, vandalized the building and forced lawmakers and others to flee for safety.

Trump and his allies also devised a plan to use false electors from key states to thwart certification.

George Washington University Law School professor Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor, said Smith might not be deterred from pursuing the obstruction charges against Trump despite the new higher bar.

“The court recognizes that submitting false evidence could still violate the statute, so it seems like with the fake electors scheme the charges should still survive,” Eliason said.

The Supreme Court is expected on Monday to issue its ruling on Trump’s bid for immunity from prosecution in the federal election subversion case. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

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FEDERAL AGENCY POWERS

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to federal regulatory power on Friday by overturning a 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer, handing a defeat to President Joe Biden’s administration.

The justices ruled 6-3 to set aside lower court decisions against fishing companies that challenged a government-run program partly funded by industry that monitored overfishing of herring off New England’s coast. It marked the latest decision in recent years powered by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority that hemmed in the authority of federal agencies.

The precedent the court overturned arose from a ruling involving oil company Chevron that had called for judges to defer to reasonable federal agency interpretations of U.S. laws deemed to be ambiguous. This doctrine, long opposed by conservatives and business interests, was called “Chevron deference.”

“Chevron is overruled. Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision.

The court’s conservative justices were in the majority, with the liberal justices dissenting. The ruling will make it easier for judges to second-guess actions by regulators, empowering challengers to regulations across federal agencies.

Business, conservative and libertarian groups cheered the decision, saying it eliminates a rule that requires courts to favor the government in all manner of challenges to regulation. The litigation was part of what has been termed the “war on the administrative state,” an effort to weaken the federal agency bureaucracy that interprets laws, crafts federal rules and implements executive action.

The decreasing productivity of Congress – thanks to its gaping partisan divide – has led to a growing reliance, especially by Democratic presidents, on rules issued by U.S. agencies to realize regulatory goals.

Biden’s administration had defended the National Marine Fisheries Service regulation at issue and the Chevron doctrine. The fish conservation program was started in 2020 under Republican former President Donald Trump.

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan, in dissent, said the ruling elevates the Supreme Court’s power over other branches of the U.S. government.

“A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris. In recent years, this court has too often taken for itself decision-making authority Congress assigned to agencies,” Kagan wrote.

Democrats and groups favoring regulation, including environmental groups, said the ruling will undermine agencies, whose officials use scientific and other expertise to ensure safe food and drugs, clean air and water, stable financial markets and fair working conditions.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the ruling “another deeply troubling decision that takes our country backwards.”

“Republican-backed special interests have repeatedly turned to the Supreme Court to block commonsense rules that keep us safe, protect our health and environment, safeguard our financial system and support American consumers and workers. And once again, the Supreme Court has decided in the favor of special interests,” Jean-Pierre said.