Supreme Court questions use of obstruction law in Jan. 6 cases

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Here in Ukraine, as leaders await news of additional U.S. aid, Russia's war here has entered a new phase, now attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure with devastating precision.

  But, first, we begin at home, where the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a case about January 6.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And those arguments focused on whether part of a federal obstruction law can be used to prosecute some of the rioters involved in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The court's ruling could impact hundreds of criminal cases, even the pending case against former President Donald Trump.

  Kyle Cheney, Politico's senior legal affairs reporter, has been following the January 6 legal fallout and he joins us now.

  Kyle, thanks so much for being with us.

  We should say, this case was brought by a former Pennsylvania police officer, Joseph Fischer, who was charged with multiple crimes for pushing his way into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Walk us through the arguments the justices heard today.

• Kyle Cheney, Senior Legal Affairs Reporter, Politico:

  So Fischer's challenge to this obstruction law, it's a complicated law, but his argument is simple. This law was passed after the Enron scandal in 2000. It was meant to stop people from tampering with evidence in a court-like proceeding or a congressional proceeding, not envisioned to cover the sort of riotous conduct that we saw on January 6.

  So he may be culpable for a lot of stuff on January 6, but this obstruction charge, which, by the way, has a 20-year maximum sentence, he says that should not apply to him or his fellow rioters.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And the Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed skeptical of the Justice Department's position. Help us understand why they seemed dubious of the DOJ's broad reading of this obstruction law.

• Kyle Cheney:

  So what DOJ essentially has said is, actually, no, Fischer's wrong. This law was passed by Congress as a catch-all. It should apply to all kinds of obstructive conduct. They missed some stuff that Enron was doing. They wanted to make sure they didn't miss anything again. So we can sweep in all of this stuff that happened after January 6 as part of that broad umbrella.

  And the justices, the conservative justices, in particular, were very skeptical about how broadly DOJ viewed it. Could it sweep in all kinds of — someone who stands up and interrupts the Supreme Court, could that person be charged with a 20-year felony?

  And DOJ said, no, no, no, it's much tougher than that. You have to prove someone had corrupt intent, which is a very difficult thing to prove, that they knew what they were disrupting and did it on purpose. But the justices seemed to worry about how it could be applied and how widely it could be applied.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Meantime, some 350 people have been charged with obstructing an official proceeding for their part in the Capitol attack. More than 100 people have already been convicted and are serving prison sentences.

  What might the outcome of the Supreme Court's ruling mean for those cases? And what might it mean for Donald Trump, who is also charged with the obstruction crime?

• Kyle Cheney:

  If the Supreme Court rules as narrowly as it might, it could upend all of those cases that we describe, those 350 cases.

  I mean, if you have already served your sentence, you're kind of out of luck. But if you're a serving or about to serve a sentence, it could totally change the game for you and you could be on the hook for misdemeanors, instead of a felony.

  As for Donald Trump, the question is, did his actions to send fake electors to Congress count as the same type of obstruction that this law was meant to cover? So, again, how the justices read that could read the charges against Donald Trump right out of special counsel Jack Smith's case or it could preserve it depending on how narrowly they construe it.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, the special counsel, is he planning potentially for an outcome that could upend his federal election subversion case?

• Kyle Cheney:

  He is. And he actually previewed his thinking on this in a recent Supreme Court filing in the presidential immunity case that's coming up with the justices next week.

  But his argument essentially is that, even under the narrowest interpretation that the Supreme Court might take of the obstruction law, Donald Trump's conduct still fits squarely within it because, by sending fake elector certificates to Congress, that's exactly the type of evidence tampering that Congress is worried about when they passed this law in the aftermath of the Enron scandal.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Kyle Cheney with Politico, thanks so much for sharing your reporting and your insights with us. We appreciate it.

• Kyle Cheney:

  Good to be with you, Geoff.