2 Reasons It's Not Clear That Trump 'Corruptly' Obstructed an Official ProceedingAppeals in the January 6 cases raise serious questions about how broadly the statute should be applied.
JACOB SULLUM
7.21.2023
Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters who participated in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol have been charged with "corruptly" obstructing an "official proceeding"—i.e., the congressional ratification of Joe Biden's victory, which was interrupted by the riot. An expected federal indictment of Trump is likely to include that charge as well. But there are serious questions about whether this statute, 18 USC 1512(c), applies to the rioters' conduct and whether it also covers what Trump himself did.
Congress enacted Section 1512(c) in response to the Enron scandal, which involved the destruction of incriminating documents by the company's auditor, the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Section 1512(c)(1) makes it a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, to "corruptly" alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal "a record, document, or other object" with "the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding." Section 1512(c)(2), the provision invoked in the Capitol riot cases, applies the same penalties to someone who "otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so."
Prior to the January 6 cases, this provision had been used mainly to prosecute people for concealing or falsifying evidence. One question raised in appeals by accused rioters is whether the congressional tally of electoral votes qualifies as an "official proceeding," and courts have accepted the government's argument that it does. But the appeals also have raised two more-nettlesome issues of statutory interpretation: What does "corruptly" mean in this context, and what sorts of conduct does Section 1512(c)(2) encompass?
Addressing the latter issue in March 2022, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected a broad interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2) that would cover acts of trespassing, assault, or vandalism (each of which is independently criminal) that interfered with the electoral tally. Rather, he said, the provision should be read to cover conduct similar to the evidence-concealing actions described in Section 1512(c)(1).
Nichols said the statutory text "supports three possible readings": "It is possible that subsections (c)(1) and (c)(2) are not related at all (though this is not a very plausible interpretation). Subsection (c)(1) may contain just examples of the much broader prohibition contained in subsection (c)(2). Or subsection (c)(2) may be limited by subsection (c)(1)." Keeping in mind the "rule of lenity," which cautions against broad application of ambiguous criminal statutes, Nichols settled on the third interpretation.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected Nichols' narrow reading in a decision last April. It concluded that Section 1512(c)(2) was broad enough to encompass "assaultive conduct" that was "committed in furtherance of an attempt to stop Congress from performing a constitutionally required duty."
* * *
Source:
https://reason.com/2023/07/21/2-reasons-its-not-clear-that-trump-corruptly-obstructed-an-official-proceeding/
