Supreme Court considers scope of federal obstruction law used to prosecute Trump and Jan. 6 rioters

Washington — The Supreme Court is set to weigh the scope of a federal obstruction statute used to prosecute hundreds of people who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a legal battle that could have ramifications for the election interference case against former President Donald Trump.

At the crux of the court fight before the court Tuesday, known as Fischer v. U.S., is whether federal prosecutors can apply a law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal to the Jan. 6 assault. The measure makes it a crime to "corruptly" obstruct or impede an official proceeding, and defense attorneys argue that the Justice Department has stretched the statute too far.

The first provision of the law prohibits altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document. Before the Jan. 6 attack, prosecutors had never used the statute in cases that did not involve evidence tampering. But since the unprecedented assault on the Capitol, it has been levied against more than 330 defendants who breached the building where Congress had convened a joint session to tally states' electoral votes.