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Donald Trump continues to set the judicial course at the United States Supreme Court. Several of the most politically and constitutionally important cases have him as the protagonist, sometimes directly and other times indirectly. This Tuesday, while the first criminal trial of the former president warms up in a Manhattan court, in New York, the nine judges of the High Court are holding a hearing in which the scope of two crimes charged to Trump in the federal case for attempted electoral rigging after the last presidential elections, held in November 2020. Although he is not strictly a party to the hearing, what the judges decide can exonerate him from these accusations. In addition, the case is decisive for criminal responsibilities for the assault on the Capitol that took place on January 6, 2021.
The Supreme Court has a conservative supermajority of six to three among its members. Three of its justices were appointed by Trump himself when he was president. The judges already ruled on March 4 that the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution, on disqualification in cases of insurrection, did not prevent him from running for office. In addition, this court has an appeal on the table in which the former president claims immunity. There are more cases linked to the Republican that can escalate to the judicial summit.
For now, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of
Joseph Fischer against the United States this Tuesday.
in which a person accused of participating in the assault on the Capitol asks for protection. What is at stake in this judicial process is the validity of the crime of obstruction of an official procedure applied to the January 2021 insurrection, which prevented Congress from proceeding normally with the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory against Trump in the November 2020 elections.
In the case of Fischer, a former Boston police officer, the district judge initially agreed with his request to dismiss the obstruction charge. The magistrate interpreted that in order to impose a penalty for obstructing an official procedure, with the session in Congress ratifying Biden's victory, the law requires having taken “some action with respect to a document, record or other object.” Given this judge's decision, the Department of Justice appealed to the District of Columbia appeals court, which said that the article should be applied in Fischer's case.
The crime of obstruction is regulated in the United States penal code in article 1512 of US Code 18, which indicates in its letter (c)(2) that “whoever corruptly obstructs, influences or impedes any official procedure, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
The letter of that specific section of the law, considered in isolation, seems to clearly fit what happened in the assault on the Capitol. The problem of interpretation becomes evident when it is observed that practically the entire article is intended to punish anyone who boycotts or obstructs an investigation in different ways, from murdering a witness to hiding evidence.
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In fact, the headline of that provision is: “Interference on a witness, a victim or an informant.” That article was also approved as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley law of 2002, aimed at prosecuting white-collar crimes. In the English original, there are also several words that leave room for interpretation.
The question that the Supreme Court has agreed to answer is the following: “Did the District of Columbia Circuit [Court] err in interpreting 18 USC § 1512(c) ('Interference with witnesses, victims or informants'), which prohibits the obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, by including acts unrelated to investigations and evidence?”
In Washington's case against Donald Trump for attempting to alter the electoral outcome of the 2020 election, two of the crimes he is accused of depend on the answer to that question. In the charge sheet of that case, which was Trump's third indictment, the prosecutor accuses him of four crimes: conspiracy to defraud the US Government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to violate civil rights. Although Trump is not directly accused of the assault on the Capitol, his maneuvers sought to obstruct the certification of Biden's victory in various ways, so the second and third crimes depend on what the Supreme Court says in this case. .
Trump's accusation in the Washington procedure for electoral interference also depends on what the Supreme Court decides in relation to the immunity that the former president claims to have and that the lower courts denied him. The hearing for the presentation of oral arguments on immunity is scheduled for April 25. The decision would affect the four crimes charged in said case. This appeal has indefinitely delayed the trial, which should have started last month and which is now paralyzed, with the possibility that it will not be held before the presidential elections on November 5, which will once again pit Biden and Trump against each other. .
The sentencing in the
Fischer case,
which is expected in June, will affect dozens of those convicted of the assault on the Capitol. At least 353 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so, according to a recent Justice Department count. He is one of the criminal figures most used to persecute those who attacked the Capitol. In total, nearly 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riots. A total of 791 people have pleaded guilty to various federal charges, many of whom were or will face prison terms at sentencing, and another 193 have been found guilty in trials.
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