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Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Fischer v. United States, a case that could fundamentally change many cases of January 6th defendants, including the prosecution of former president Donald Trump. The case involves the interpretation of a federal statute prohibiting obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations.

The case concerns 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which provides:

Joseph Fischer was charged with various offenses, but U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of the District of Columbia dismissed the 1512(c)2 charges. Judge Nichols found that the statute is exclusively directed to crimes related to documents, records, or other objects.

The D.C. Circuit reversed and held that Section 1512(c)(2) is a “catch all” provision that encompasses all forms of obstructive conduct. Circuit Judge Florence Pan ruled that the “natural, broad reading of the statute is consistent with prior interpretations of the words it uses and the structure it employs.” However, Judge Gregory Katsas dissented and rejected “the government’s all-encompassing reading.”

The Court will now consider the question of whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred in construing 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, to include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence.

The law itself was not designed for this purpose. It was part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and has been described as “prompted by the exposure of Enron’s massive accounting fraud and revelations that the company’s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents.”

Oral argument is today and Turley is be covering the arguments on X (Twitter)…

The government is now up with its case…

The Court just ended argument.

The three liberal justices offered support for the government and Justice Barrett seemed on the fence at points.

It is hard to tell where Barrett may end up.

However, there was clearly a skepticism from four justices, including Chief Justice Roberts.

The oral argument favored the defendants and could result in a wider impact on dozens of cases, including the prosecution of former President Trump.

The loss of the obstruction counts for Jack Smith would undermine his narrative (giving Trump new grounds to seek dismissal of two of the four counts in the federal prosecution against him for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss), but he could proceed on the remaining counts.