As the Supreme Court gears up to decide if Donald Trump's claims of immunity from prosecution are legitimate, another case in front of the court threatens to upend special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of him, Politico reported.
The case, Joseph W. Fischer v. United States, has raised the issue of whether the Department of Justice has been improperly using a law originally aimed at curbing financial crimes to prosecute Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer. As Politico points out, if the Court rules in Fischer's favor, it would undermine Smith's use of the law against Trump, as well as other Jan. 6 defendants.
Two of the four counts in Smith's indictment are for obstruction of an official proceeding and for conspiracy to do so. According to Politico, those crimes "are part of a relatively recent criminal statute governing financial disclosures known as the Sarbanes-Oxley (or “SOX”) Act, which was enacted following the Enron corporate accounting scandal, and which makes it a crime to obstruct an official proceeding of the U.S. government."
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So far, the Justice Department has used the law to charge over 300 Jan. 6 defendants, and more than 150 have been convicted.
Fischer, as well as other defendants, argues that the “obstruction of an official proceeding” part of the law was only meant to apply narrowly to financial crimes — not the broad definition as relied on by the government.
"The impact of Fischer on the Jan. 6 trial against Trump might not be known until after the Supreme Court wraps up its term in June, at which point it could knock out half of Smith’s counts against Trump. And it could also disrupt the convictions of many Jan. 6 defendants already serving time for their role in the insurrection," Politico's report stated.
Read the full report over at Politico.
