Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter Readers. We are almost done with the Supreme Court’s rulings, which are expected to end on Monday Donald Trump‘s immunity case until the final decisions. But the court made several important rulings this week, including another case involving Jan. 6 that could also impact Trump’s.
The other case is Fischer v. United States, in which the court sided with a defendant filed on January 6 over the scope of a federal charge of obstructing an official proceeding. Chief Justice John Roberts narrowed the charge against the six-judge majority, writing that prosecutors must show that a defendant “impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of any document, record, object, or other thing used in an official proceeding or attempted to do so.”
That limits the use of the law against rioters in the Justice Department’s massive efforts to prosecute them. But Fischer’s impact may be limited, as Attorney General Merrick Garland noted Friday that “the vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants indicted for their illegal actions on January 6 will not be affected by this decision.” That’s because Garland said that “there are no instances in which the department has charged a Jan. 6 defendant solely with the offense at issue in the Fischer case.”
What Fischer means to Trump remains to be seen. Two of the four charges in his federal election interference case involve that obstruction law. But his case is different because he is not accused of storming the Capitol, but of allegedly participating in a broader conspiracy to undermine the 2020 election. So even under the now narrower scope of the law, special counsel Jack Smith could still move forward with those charges against Trump, although it may take more lawsuits to sort that out.
But first we need the immunity decree to see what happens next in Trump’s case, including when it goes to trial, if ever. We expect that ruling on Monday, when the court is ready to make its remaining decisions. As usual, the court is in no hurry to decide Trump v. United States , just as it was in no hurry to prepare the case for oral argument, which happened on the last day of the session.
But there is much more than Trump on the docket, though his three Supreme Court appointees have heavily influenced the court, underscoring the stakes for the upcoming election. The impact of the GOP-appointed justices was on full display this week in overturning longstanding precedent on the power of federal agencies and limiting federal prosecutions for bribery, among other calls, including on the environment, homelessness and abortion.
We are now looking at Monday for the immunity ruling as Trump prepares to be sentenced next week in New York. Watch for a special edition of the newsletter after the advisory comes out to close out this historic term.
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
