Special counsel Jack Smith told a federal judge Wednesday that a recent Supreme Court ruling limiting the scope of an obstruction charge used in Jan. 6 cases does not apply to former President Donald Trump’s election subversion case, arguing the justices “did not invalidate” the statute being used against Trump.
Smith argued the obstruction counts of the superseding indictment should be sustained because Trump is accused of creating false evidence in a plan to insert alternate electors into the certification process, unlike in the Fischer v. United States case involving a Jan. 6 rioter who succeeded in getting the obstruction charge invalidated at the Supreme Court. Trump said in an Oct. 3 filing that the entire case should be thrown out and has called Smith’s continued prosecution of him in the final weeks before the election a form of interference.
