More on the Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obstruction Charge Case with Implications for Trump...

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by Bradley Jaye at Breitbart

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a man involved in events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, can be charged for obstructing an official proceeding in a case that could have significant implications for the federal government’s prosecution of Donald Trump.

The defendant, Joseph Fischer, was indicted on seven charges after January 6, but the charge in question is a count under a provision enacted after the Enron scandal for anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences and impedes any official proceeding,” known as 18 U.S.C. 1512.

Trump’s allies argue that the provision was clearly intended to cover the destruction of evidence related to white-collar crime and that the Supreme Court’s decision to examine this issue is bad news for U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the government’s broad interpretation of the statute.

“Today was a bad day for Jack Smith, and a good day for the rule of law,” former U.S. Ambassador Ken Blackwell exclusively told Breitbart News.

Prosecutors say Fischer assaulted the police to disrupt the congressional certification of the results of the 2020 election and that his actions fit under 18 U.S.C. 1512. Although Trump is not part of Fisher’s case, the statute is a central piece of Smith’s criminal prosecution of the former president.

That trial is scheduled to begin March 4, 2024,…