There is little question that Joseph Fischer was present for, and to some degree participated in, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in Washington, D.C., in 2021. By his own attorney’s admission, Fischer entered the Capitol complex and “pushed his way through the crowd — to about 20 feet inside the building” before he was pepper sprayed and ultimately exited the premises. Fischer not only yelled “charge” toward a phalanx of Metropolitan Police Department officers protecting the building, said federal investigators, but urged fellow rioters to “hold the line” and seemingly identified himself as “a cop, too” during a brief melee with members of the MPD. Prosecutors allege he also claimed he wanted to take Democratic lawmakers “to the gallows,” texting an acquaintance that they “can’t vote if they can’t breathe.”
Just over a month later, Fischer was arrested by the FBI and suspended from his job as a North Cornwall Township Police Department patrolman. He now faces a host of criminal charges including assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct, and, crucially: obstructing a congressional proceeding. That is one of the same charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump for allegedly working to subvert the results of the 2020 election. But all that could change after the Supreme Court this week heard arguments to waive Fischer’s obstruction charge on the grounds that the law in question had been improperly applied in this, and potentially hundreds of similar Jan. 6-related cases — including Trump’s.
What did the commentators say?
The obstruction charges against Fischer were initially rejected by a district judge who “concluded that the provision only applies to evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding,” SCOTUSBlog said. Those charges were reinstated by a federal appeal court, after which the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Tuesday’s oral arguments marked the first time the Supreme Court had addressed “fallout from the Jan. 6 attack head-on,” CBS News said. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued on behalf of the government to “remind the justices of the unprecedented nature” of the insurrection. Fischer’s case is nevertheless a “sleeping giant” that could “knock out half of Smith’s counts against Trump,” as well as those against people already convicted for participating on Jan. 6, Politico said. Should the court rule in Fischer’s favor, “chaos will erupt,” Esquire said, with “dozens of cases overturned and/or not brought to trial at all.” Trump, meanwhile, will “try to sell the fact that the dismissal of two charges means his whole bill of indictment is wiped clean.”
In the past, the majority-conservative court has been “skeptical of prosecutors when they assert broad applications of criminal provisions” like the government’s interpretation of the obstruction charge in question, NBC News said. Conversely, a “broader reading of the statute would appear to be what Congress intended,” Politico said, quoting several Republican lawmakers who had previously referred to the statute as being intended to include “other forms of obstruction of justice” beyond its origins in the 2001 Enron scandal. Still, after Tuesday’s arguments, the “government’s approach appeared vulnerable to being rejected,” The Wall Street Journal said, even though it is “far from certain” whether a win for Fischer would ultimately benefit Trump. It’s possible “there’s a world in which the decision could come down in a way that benefits Fischer but not former President Trump,” one legal expert who spoke with the paper explained.
What next?
The court is expected to issue its ruling in July when its term ends. No matter how the case is decided, Special Counsel Smith has “indicated […] the charges against Trump would survive” NPR said, as Trump’s alleged behavior is more directly tied to a narrower reading of the statute in question. Because Smith’s indictments were “based on the fake slate of electors the former president attempted to have submitted to Congress” and not the Jan. 6 riot itself, ” his case against Trump “may still stick even if Fischer wins his case,” CNN said.
Should the obstruction charges be dismissed, it might not matter regardless, since several others of Smith’s charges “overlap almost entirely with the accusations in the obstruction counts,” The New York Times said, calling it a “layer of redundancy to the indictment.”
A former Pennsylvania cop might hold the key to a major upheaval in how the courts treat the Capitol riot — and its alleged instigator
