Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical Of Biden DOJ’s Broad Use Of Statute To Charge Jan. 6 Defendants

[Valin]

The Daily Caller

Katelynn Richardson

April 16, 2024

A majority of Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Tuesday of the government’s broad reading of a statute used to charge hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as former President Donald trump.

Joseph Fischer, the defendant in the case Fischer v. United States, argued that the statute he was charged under, Section 1512(c)(2), was expanded beyond its intended purpose of targeting crimes of evidence tampering. Multiple conservative justices pressed Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar on whether the government’s interpretation of the statute, which enabled it to charge Fischer and others for obstructing Congress’ certification of the 2020 election, would sweep in a range of other protest activities.

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The Supreme Court’s decision could impact not only hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, but also Trump’s election interference case. Two of the charges in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump center on the statute.

 

 

 

Smith’s indictment argued that Trump employed  “knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.”

Multiple Jan. 6 defendants charged under Section 1512(c)(2) have already been granted early release in light of the Supreme Court taking up the case, including Kevin Seefried, Alexander Sheppard and Thomas B. Adams Jr., according to The Washington Post.

Gorsuch asked whether pulling a fire alarm before a vote would also qualify for 20 years in prison under the statute, a likely reference to Democratic New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s September decision to pull a fire alarm before a House vote on a GOP funding package to prevent a government shutdown.

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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson likewise suggested the government may still be able to charge defendants if they limited the statute in this manner, clarifying that it applies to conduct that would obstruct an official proceeding “insofar as it is directed to preventing access to information or documents or records or things that the official proceeding will use.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan appeared more sympathetic to the government’s position. Kagan noted there has never “been a situation like this with people attempting to stop a proceeding violently.”

“So I’m not sure what a lack of history proves,” she said.

[Valin]

Apr 16, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook, hosts of the Ruthless podcast, to discuss disgraced legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin calling out Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Megyn's response calling back to Toobin's gross Zoom history, and more.

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It was called Spanking The Monkey, Playing Pocket Pool, Looping The Log. Now Doin A Toobin.

 

Apr 16, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook, hosts of the Ruthless podcast, to discuss how the Supreme Court could overturn January 6 defendant sentences, what that could mean for Trump, the struggles of the government in arguing their case, and more.

[Geee]

Supreme Court exposes Biden’s selective prosecution of political opponents

 

During oral arguments on Tuesday, Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito exposed the Biden administration’s inexcusable practice of selective prosecution of protesters and rioters.

The case, Fischer v. United States, involved the contention by Pennsylvanian Joseph Fischer that the charges of “obstruct[ion of] … any official proceeding,” based on 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), should not apply to his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Fischer, who also was charged with assaulting police officers, is hardly a sympathetic figure. His claims that he wasn’t trying to obstruct or “impede” official (and important) congressional business, in the ordinary (nonlegal) sense of those words, are specious, but Gorsuch and Alito were interested in a point broader than Fischer’s particular circumstances.

[Valin]

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Progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) used the fire alarm stunt before a key spending vote last Sept. 30 and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge carrying negligible penalties, but he bragged about not being charged for obstructing House proceedings even though that’s what he had obviously done when the alarm forced an evacuation. That mandatory mass exit interrupted attempts to ward off a government shutdown.

THIS more than anything really Pisses people off. 1. 2 Tier Justice, 2. No Consequences.

[Geee]

Why SCOTUS Will Toss 350 J6 Convictions A clear majority questions the DOJ's use of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to prosecute J6 defendants.

 

t’s unlikely that many Americans sat down with a second cup of coffee and listened to last Tuesday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Fischer v. United States. Nonetheless, it was an edifying tutorial on how the Department of Justice abused a federal law in order to charge J6 rioters with a serious felony. The statute is part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 to prevent corporations from tampering with evidence to obstruct congressional inquiries or other official proceedings. For 19 years, the law was used only for that purpose. Then, in 2021, the DOJ redefined “official proceedings” to mean anything the government does, including certification of Electoral College votes.

 

This arbitrary revision became necessary because the actual “crimes” committed by most of the J6 defendants amounted to little more than trespassing and disorderly conduct. This obviously conflicted with the narrative being pushed by President Biden, congressional Democrats and the corporate media, all of whom insisted from the beginning that the riot was a “deadly insurrection.” Consequently, the DOJ had to come up with something that would sound more serious to the public than charging a few hundred knuckleheads with misdemeanors. At length they landed on Section 1512(c)(2) of Sarbanes-Oxley, which includes language that was distorted by prosecutors to charge roughly 350 rioters with felonies:

1512(c) Whoever corruptly —

(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.