Posted on 02/01/2024 12:27:24 AM PST by JonathonMoseley
The existential fate of the First Amendment of the US Constitution rests in the hands of the Supreme Court and whether the high court of appeal will strike down 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2), the most serious criminal charges leveled against former President Donald Trump and an ever-growing number of January 6 defendants.
1512 criminalizes any effort to “corruptly” obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding.” A conviction can result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Last April, an appellate court issued a splintered 2-1 ruling endorsing the DOJ’s unprecedented misuse of the statute, a law passed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 outlawing evidence tampering in the aftermath of the Enron/Arthur Anderson accounting scandal. The law has never in United States history been used to prosecute demonstrators or rioters.
Jonathon Moseley, an investigative researcher and paralegal with Former Feds Group, a team of former federal government lawyers turned defense counsel, provided The Gateway Pundit analysis of the 1512 Obstruction of Official Proceeding appeal that is looming on the Supreme Court Docket:
On Monday, January 29, a Supreme Court decision leaped closer. Joseph Fischer filed his Principal “Brief on the Merits” by attorney Frederich Ulrich which you can read here.
Attorney Ed Tarpley filed an Amicus Curiae (friend of the Court) brief for FormerFeds Freedom Foundation. America’s Future with others also filed a brief here. Christopher Warnagiris, Christopher Carnell, and William Robert Norwood, III filed a brief.
For non-lawyers, it might take a few read-throughs, but you can still get a lot out of reading these.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
The DoJ and U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves are prosecuting Donald Trump under 4 counts of protesting the 2020 presidential election. Two of the four charges are for violating 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) and (k) for conspiring to do so. Because the other two counts are fuzzy, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump could collapse in an ocean of vagueness without the only two clear counts.
Hundreds of Defendants have taken plea deals because of the severe threat of being charged with 18 U.S.C. 1512. Attorney Roger Roots is battling cases where the DoJ offers plea deals usually of “the four misdemeanors” and then adds felonies like 1512 as retaliation against Defendants who won’t plead guilty.
Judge Carl Nichols dismissed 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) charges against three January 6 Defendants – Jake Lang, Garrett Miller, and Joseph Fischer – on the grounds that the conduct alleged was outside of the reach of the statute. The statute was passed as a species of obstruction of justice by tampering with evidence. It has never been used in this way before. Prosecutors are in effect “legislating from the Grand Jury room,” inventing non-existent crimes as if they were Congress.
Trouble is: the DoJ has never used this statute before for demonstrations, even those protests that have descended into skirmishes, violence, riots, arson, assault, death or worse. Washington, D.C. was under siege of arson and riots in 2017 before and during Donald Trump’s inauguration. If the DoJ has never before believed that 18 U.S.C. 1512 covers demonstrations, why should the Supreme Court take a different view today?
In May-June 2020, leftist rioters “obstructed official proceedings” at the White House. See: Jon Lockett,”50 Secret Service agents injured in White House riots as Donald Trump is taken to ‘terror attack’ bunker,” The Sun, June 1, 2020. The nation’s worldwide military forces and diplomatic corps are supervised and controlled by the White House. Yet the Secret Service had to rush the Commander in Chief into an underground bunker designed for nuclear war.
Let’s hope scotus does the tight thing, but don’t hold your breath.
one would think this is a slam dunk for the scotus given the extremely selective use of this to silence conservative dissent but not liberal activists that attend and disrupt any and every “official proceeding” they don’t agree with. selective punishment is the hallmark of the liberal marxist and “Pain for thee but not for Me” is their mantra.
This is a well-done analysis, but it would benefit from elucidation of a larger point. When a statute is passed that is overly broad or laden with hidden ramifications, prosecutors can be tempted to interpret the new statute so as to charge new crimes. Doing so though violates the federal constitutional guarantee of due process and the prohibition of ex post facto laws. In effect, the public lacks adequate notice that their conduct may violate the law because the terms of the law lack sufficient clarity.
You state , of course, a bedrock foundation of the Law that vagueness of the Law is unacceptable. RATs don’t care. Absolute power is the only God they worship.
It is helpful to distinguish between casual Democratic voters and the devoted Leftist ideologues who run the Democratic Party. To an astonishing degree, the latter have a sinister love of power and a desire to destroy their opponents.
I would only do that by age. If they are still Democrats after the age of thirty their mind has usually become so corrupted they remain essentially politically insane for the rest of their lives. Young people don't know any better but the honest ones who are willing to question authority eventually catch on.
Praying the SCOTUS will find favor on the J^ prisoners and let them free
I would argue that if they use it against the protesters, then, Jamal what’s-his-name goes to the big house for 20, for pulling the fire alarm.
Which would they choose?
f JohnRoberts
-fJRoberts-
“JohnRoberts”
LOL!
He’s been on the Majority side of several cases:
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. 215 (2021)
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022)
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023)
He’s not “perfect”. But he’s better than Burger and I’d dare say Rehnquist (the latter regarding 2nd Amendment issues).
You make a good point. Working, marriage, and kids tends to change one’s outlook on life. More than a few teens and college grads begin to change their political views when they get their first paycheck and see how much is taken out by taxes, social security, and FICA. And I forget who it was, but someone once opined to that you are an idiot if you have kids and are not made into a conservative by the experience.
The only difference is that Stalin called them "useful idiots" and you call them "casual demonRAT voters".
Any vote for a demonRAT in today's world is a vote for communism and tyranny, and I will not forgive ignorance as an excuse.
Decades ago, Nichols had represented Harriet Miers in a similar case of Federal prosecutorial abuse. His ruling was vigorous, and overturned in a 2-1 decision led by Biden (post-J6!) appointee Pan, and Judge Walker, who made his bones defying the plandemic in On Fire Christian Center Inc v (former Mayor) Greg Fischer, et al.
Walker should be ashamed he did not join Katsas to make a majority upholding Nichols, instead concurring in part to pettifog about "Though the meaning of “corruptly” is narrow, the indictments should still be upheld." Just say you wanted SCOTUS to grab the third rail, Justin. Kiss your SCOTUS seat goodbye!
It won't be easy, as Bannon's and Navarro's cases will possibly end up in front of SCOTUS as well. Are they willing to support the proper disposal of 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2), or are they fearful of 'appearances' as Republican and Trump appointees?
What’ll it be: no standing, or too late?
“obstructed official proceedings”
How long before pleading “Not Guilty” to a Federal accusation leads to this charge being leveled at a defendant?
Interesting how it opens with drilling down into Walker's pettifogging on "corruptly"; however if his intent was to get this before SCOTUS, even with consolidation, it was a reckless dice throw when Walker had Katsas Dissent ready to operate as a majority opinion upholding.
That said, and we get the 5 votes then it might have been worth the dice shake to destroy this angle of attack for future Federal prosecutorial misconduct.
Of the inside baseball helping this along, given SCOTUS will have to return on the Colorado case that pivots on both "insurrection" and "officer" -- and Justice Samour's fairly amazing Dissent -- it would be an ugly scenario if SCOTUS was willing to overturn the Colorado state court based on an obvious, if not outright oblivious, intentional, purposeful, misinterpretation of "insurrection" and "officer"; and yet was not willing to show the exact . same . alacrity . to overturn a Federal court based on a much simpler interpretation of "corruptly" as it specifically obtained to Sarbanes-Oxley.
John Roberts gave us Bidementia
Re: 19 - you mean the 2020 election?
Rightly or wrongly, standing is a consideration and why several 2020 election challenges failed. It’s a relatively “new” phenomenon (last ~100 years or so). It could be worse - nationwide injunctions have really become the rage the last ten years or so.
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