Michael Riley, the disgraced former Capitol Police who was found guilty of obstruction of justice after he tipped off a Capitol rioter and warned him to delete incriminating Facebook posts, has lost his bid to have his verdict overturned.
Per Politico's Kyle Cheney, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday rejected Riley's appeal to have his conviction tossed.
In its ruling, the court sums up Riley's argument as being that "the government failed to establish that an official grand jury proceeding was foreseeable or that he deleted his Facebook direct messages to affect any such proceeding."
However, the court said this argument is completely implausible given Riley's background in law enforcement.
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"Riley was a veteran Capitol Police officer concededly aware of the role of grand juries in the criminal process, and his own messages showed he expected felony prosecutions of unauthorized entrants into the Capitol building on January 6," writes the court. "The indictment’s allegations and the trial evidence sufficed to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that at least one grand jury would be—and was—empaneled to hear evidence of crimes relating to the January 6 Capitol breach. They also showed that Riley knew his deletion of records of his communications with [Jacob] Hiles would tend to impair the availability of that evidence to the grand jury. Because each of Riley’s challenges rests on that core, flawed argument, each fails."
The court also called out Riley for arguing that his conviction should be overturned because Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was overseeing the case, criticized him too harshly.
"Riley also complains the district judge was unduly critical of his legal arguments throughout the trial, evidenced by comments from the bench that he views as harsh or dismissive," the court states. "Riley ignores, however, that the government, too, drew critical comments from the district court. More importantly, none of the comments Riley cites was stated in the jury’s presence or aimed at the defendant or the merits of his case. Every comment Riley identifies appears to be a genuine and fair effort to keep counsel on track and probe their arguments."
