(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to the “Obstruction of an Official Proceeding” charge that hundreds of Jan. 6 protestors have been slapped with.
If the challenge is successful, hundreds of defendants could be eligible for a sentence reduction. However, the Justice Department has threatened that it will seek stiffer sentences for other crimes if it can no longer utilize the obstruction charge.
The DOJ’s threat was made in a motion this week in the case of Anthony Williams, a Jan. 6 protestor who was found guilty of obstruction along with four misdemeanors. Williams is serving a 60-month prison sentence for those charges, and he’s seeking his release.
Opposing Williams’s bid to get out of jail, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves signaled what he’ll do if SCOTUS overturns the obstruction charge against Williams and hundreds of other J6ers.
“Williams nevertheless cannot show that there is any likelihood that the outcome in Fischer will result in a reduced sentence … because the government’s sentencing recommendation likely would be different in the absence of a conviction for obstruction of an official proceeding … and could include a request for consecutive sentences to account for both the severity of Williams’s conduct on January 6 and for the aspects of his conduct and history that the Court originally found warranted a sixty (60) month sentence,” Graves said.
Reporter Julie Kelly, who first reported on Graves’s motion, read between the lines of what the politically motivated prosecutor was saying.
“In other words—don’t you dare,” Kelly said. “Not only is Graves’ approach a punitive admonition to J6ers planning to seek relief, but it’s also a thumb in the nose of the Supreme Court. Go ahead and reverse us, Graves is saying in so many words, we will find another way to punish these individuals.”
Matthew Graves is lowkey threatening J6ers convicted, sentenced, in jail, or otherwise ensnared by the illicit charge–if you seek relief after SCOTUS overturns the count, we will still make you pay.
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) March 21, 2024
The obstruction charge that SCOTUS will review was originally intended to punish people who destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses. Indeed, the statute in question was passed by Congress in wake of the Enron scandal, to punish business executives for altering financial documents.
But in the wake of J6, the Justice Department is using the statute to target protestors who interrupted the proceedings on Capitol Hill.
SCOTUS is scheduled to hear the challenge to the obstruction statute on April 16.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
