The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Friday that sided with a protester who was charged with “obstruction” by the Justice Department for his actions during the January 6 demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
The ruling follows years of accusations by Republicans that the Justice Department and federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI have been weaponized against those that oppose the Democratic Party or left-wing policies, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Here is some of what Brianna Herlihy, Chris Pandolfo, Bill Mears, and Shannon Bream reported on the high court’s recent decision for Fox News:
In a 6-3 decision, the high court held to a narrower interpretation of a federal statute that imposes criminal liability on anyone who corruptly “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.”
The ruling reverses a lower court decision, which the high court said swept too broadly into areas like peaceful but disruptive conduct, and returns the case to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who will have the opportunity to reassess the case with Friday’s ruling in mind.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by Joseph Fischer — one of more than 300 people charged by the Justice Department with “obstruction of an official proceeding” in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. His lawyers argued that the federal statute should not apply, and that it had only ever been applied to evidence-tampering cases.
The Justice Department argued that Fischer’s actions were a “deliberate attempt” to stop a joint session of Congress directly from certifying the 2020 election, thus qualifying their use of the statute that criminalizes behavior that “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do” and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
However, Chief Justice John Roberts said the government stretched the law too far.
To read more about the high court’s decision, please click HERE.
