Will The Supremes Give Trump Another Break?

Created
Wed, 17/04/2024 - 09:00
Updated
Wed, 17/04/2024 - 09:00
Here’s the rundown from Ian Millhiser: The Supreme Court spent about an hour and a half on Tuesday morning arguing over whether to make it much harder for the Justice Department to prosecute hundreds of people who joined the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. It appears, after Tuesday’s arguments, that a majority of the justices will side with the insurrectionists — though it is far from clear how those justices will justify such an outcome. The case, known as Fischer v. United States, involved a federal law which provides that anyone who “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so” commits a very serious federal felony and can be imprisoned for up to 20 years — although, as Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar pointed out during Tuesday’s argument, actual sentences against January 6 defendants convicted under this statute have been much shorter, normally ranging from a little less than one year to slightly over two years. According to the Justice Department, more than 1,265 people have been arrested for playing some role in the attack on the Capitol. Approximately 330 of them have been charged under the obstruction statute at issue in Fischer. One of them is Donald Trump. As a federal appeals court held in its decision in this case, the obstruction statute is pretty darn clear that it applies to an effort to obstruct any congressional proceeding intended to certify the result of a presidential election — like the proceeding that the January 6 rioters attacked. And very few of the…