‘A personal victory’: Political prisoners cheer Supreme Court’s J6 ruling
US political prisoners are cheering the Supreme Court’s Friday ruling that dealt a major blow to the Biden administration’s persecution of hundreds of taxpayers over January 6th.
A weaponized law
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged over 355 Americans who attended the Capitol rally with §1512 (c )(2), a law that carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence for obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The law was created in the wake of the 2001 Enron scandal when employees at the Arthur Andersen accounting firm illegally destroyed documents related to an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Biden administration operatives have wielded this law to charge and imprison January 6 political prisoners. Many Capitol rally attendees were coerced into accepting plea deals to avoid the possibility of long prison sentences that could result from being prosecuted under that felony charge.
Blocked by SCOTUS
On Friday, the US Supreme Court effectively ended the DOJ’s maneuver. In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled in Fischer v. USA that the law is meant to be applied to cases of evidence tampering, not to taxpayers exercising their First Amendment rights.
“To prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. Justices Barrett, Kagan, and Sotomayor dissented.
‘A very personal victory to me’
One of the many Americans persecuted over January 6th is Dr. Simone Gold, founder and president of the human rights group America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS). The Biden administration used Section 1512(c)(2) to pressure Dr. Gold into pleading guilty to trespassing, for which she was sentenced to 60 days in prison.
Her associate, AFLDS Creative Director John Strand, refused to accept a plea deal and is currently serving two-and-a-half years for violating the misapplied law and has suffered inexplicably harsh treatment by the Bureau of Prisons
“This is also a very personal victory to me,” said Dr. Gold in a press release. “I faced this felony charge and chose to accept a plea deal because of the lengthy 20-year sentence. My friend and co-worker, John Strand, is currently serving a 30-month sentence in federal prison because he refused to accept a plea for this dishonest — and now definitively illegal — charge.”
Dr. Gold, who is also an attorney, called the Supreme Court’s Fischer vs. USA ruling a “critical step for preserving the rule of law in our nation. With >300,000 federal statutes providing pretext for federal prosecutors to target and selectively persecute anyone with an unrelated felony charge, SCOTUS has averted a dangerous precedent that would have been felt far beyond Fischer. This is a victory for all Americans and a monumental defeat for those attempting to legalize fascism in our country.”
Relief ‘cannot come soon enough’
David Dalia, an affiliate attorney with AFLDS, also celebrated the Supreme Court’s rejection of what he called an “unjust overcharge.”
“This § 1512(c)(2) residuary clause was relentlessly stretched by the DOJ to overcharge the J6 defendants for mere misdemeanor trespass, unlawfully giving the DOJ powerful leverage to wring plea agreements from defendants under the threat of illegal and extremely lengthy felony prison terms,” he said.
Dalia noted that the DOJ brushed aside insurrection charges in favor of Section 1512(c)(2), which carries double the sentence.
“Although J6 defendants were incessantly branded by the mainstream media as ‘insurrectionists,’ not one person was ever charged with insurrection, which ‘only’ carries a 10-year prison term. Instead, all were charged with §1512(c)(2)’s 20-year prison term. Thankfully, this unjust overcharge was rejected today by SCOTUS. Now all of the J6 defendants are entitled to have their long jail sentences immediately recalculated. In the vast majority of cases, this should result in their release. Relief for these long-suffering J6 defendants cannot come soon enough.”
