Supreme Court issues major ruling on Jan. 6

More breaking news this time about the January 6th rioters the Supreme Court has just ruled. Let's get to Shannon Bream. What did they say? So what they have said is that one of the statutes the Justice Department used to charge hundreds of different January 6th defendants is no good. And that includes President Donald Trump because he has actually had two of these counts against him in the Jack Smith DC case against him, that federal criminal case that has been on hold here. So what essentially they say is this statute which was passed in the wake of Enron, They say it doesn't fit here. He says given that the subsection was enacted to address the Enron disaster, not some other far-flung set of dangers like what happened just right over here at the Capitol, it is unlikely that Congress responded with such an unfocused and grossly incommensurate patch. In English, that essentially means that all of these people who were charged under this particular obstruction statute for January 6th, that is no good. The dissent is this is a very interesting vote makeup because the dissent is actually written by Justice Barrett and she is joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. She says that Congress did intend for this kind of conduct to be brought under this particular obstruction charge. She thinks the majority got it wrong, but what it means is a big headache for the DOJ and good news for hundreds of January 6th defendants charged under this statute, again, including President Trump. It's a big ruling too. I mean, these are big, big cases. Let's bring back Andy McCarthy, Jonathan Turley, Andy, you know, this is what does it mean, big picture for these January 6th and how many people and how many people was this statute? Did it apply to all these cases? Well, it applied to all of them or or many of them, Dana, in the sense that it was charged in them. It doesn't mean that everybody who pled guilty, for example, which happened massively in in that connection doesn't mean that all those people have preserved their right to complain about that on appeal. So how many of them it will actually benefit is questionable. But the importance here is that they have found that this is an evidence impairment statute. So in other words, for this kind of obstruction to apply, you actually have to corrupt the documentary evidence that's being presented in a proceeding. The way the Justice Department tried to apply it was that if you engage in conduct that prevents the proceeding from happening in the 1st place that it was applicable. The court seems to me emphatically to be saying that that's not the case, at least the majority decision. And I think the importance with respect to President Trump is, number one, does Jack Smith have to supersede his indictment because the most important two counts of that indictment are this obstruction statute. I think what he would come back and say is that his obstruction theory in the case includes what they call the fake electors scheme, where they actually provided certificates to the Congress for purposes of, according to the prosecutors, undermining the proceeding at which President Biden's victory was certified. So it'll be interesting to see what Jack Smith has to do with his case and does he have to go back to the grand jury and supersede it. If he has to do that, hard to imagine that this case could get to trial. Jonathan, do any of the rioters who are in jail today get released because of this? They very well could be. There's two aspects to this. Some of them were convicted of what is now established to be improper charges. I mean, with the that hundreds of people were the subject of improper charges by the Justice Department. That includes President Trump, who has not been tried yet. They were also sentenced based on this conviction as well as a mix of other things. So those sentencing decisions now have to be reevaluated. I, I've, I've said all along that I was surprised by how heavy the Department of Justice went on obstruction. I analogized it to someone going to Vegas and playing roulette, but only betting red. Well, basically the court just said red's not a bet. So we've got to go back and look at all of these cases, not just for those who now have these convictions knocked out, but how they impact sentencing for President Trump. This is a big day. I mean, I've said all along that Fisher needs to be treated as important as the immunity decision potentially for Trump. It basically rips the wings off the plane that Jack Smith is trying to get off the ground in DC. Now, can he push that plane forward on the running way? I don't know. Because if you take this, this claim out, it's really integral to his entire complaint. I mean, it's hard to see how the complaint holds together if if he was excessive and wrong in bringing these charges. So normally you would see a superseding indictment. And as my as, as my friend Andy said, but I expect he's going to try to avoid that. But for Trump, what a day. I mean, his nominees put the court over the top in delivering the coup de grace on on Chevron. And then they just knocked out hundreds of these convictions for January 6th. These citizens should not have been charged with this crime. Just to be clear, Joseph Fisher is one of about 330 people charged with this obstruction of official proceeding in connection with January 6th. And you know, that's a fraction of the 13150 or so January 6th defendants, but it's a big, big deal. And back to Shannon Bream, we're done for the day on decisions. That means that next week we are looking for the rest of this, including immunity. Yes. And the Chief Justice has said Monday is the final day of the term. That means Monday we find out presidential immunity, where that goes for President Trump and potentially generations of presidents to come. As we keep saying, Justice Gorsuch said during the arguments, we are writing a rule for the ages. It's barely taking some time to get that hammered out. But we go into overtime. Monday will be the final day. So Monday, 10:00 AM here, Eastern, we will find out what the court has decided on that presidential immunity claim by President Trump. It's a political version of penalty kicks. TuneIn nice sports. I know everyone was worried about that.