(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A criminal defendant from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest is appealing one of his charges to the Supreme Court, in a move that his attorney says could impact hundreds of other J6 cases and investigations—including the one against former President Donald Trump.
J6 defendant Edward Jacob Lang filed an appeal to SCOTUS last week, seeking to overturn the “Obstruction of an Official Proceeding” charge against him. Lang is also accused of assaulting law enforcement, disorderly conduct and trespassing on Capitol grounds.
In his petition, Lang’s attorney, Norman Pattis, noted that the obstruction charge 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, Pattis said.
“Use of a statute intended to combat alteration of records, intimidation of witnesses and conduct aimed at disrupting investigative and adjudicatory proceedings is an example of prosecutorial overcharging,” Pattis said.
“This use necessarily chills anyone considering attending a public protest, or appearing outside a building at which an official proeeding is set to commence. Will they, too, be charged with a felony if the event turns violent?”
According to Pattis, the use of the obstruction charge was always used narrowly to charge people who wanted to suppress evidence of their own crimes—until after Jan. 6, when the DOJ started applying it more broadly.
Pattis said the DOJ has now morphed the law “into something well beyond what Congress had in mind when it passed a law intended to punish interference with the integrity of evidentiary proceedings.”
“This statute not only carries with it a significant penalty—up to 20 years in prison—it sends a chilling message to anyone contemplating attendance at a political rally: Stay home. If things go wrong, you could face charges of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding,” he said.
The Washington DC district court initially agreed with Lang’s arguments, dismissing the obstruction charge against him in June 2022. But the appeals court overturned that ruling in April of this year, leading to Lang’s SCOTUS appeal.
Pattis reportedly said that he expects SCOTUS to decide whether to hear Lang’s appeal by September.
Lang also told The Epoch Times that the Lang case could impact hundreds of other J6 defendants, including Trump—if and when the DOJ charges him over the matter.
“I think the timing of this filing is astronomical,” he said. “Donald Trump is the political frontrunner for the Republican Party, and while the other bogus charges might easily go away through a plea deal, the obstruction of Congress charge carries prison time. This one would land him in serious hot water with a conviction.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
