{"id":2222711,"date":"2024-04-16T19:01:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T23:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gorsuch-hammers-biden-doj-on-mostly-peaceful-protests\/"},"modified":"2024-04-16T19:04:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T23:04:05","slug":"gorsuch-hammers-biden-doj-on-mostly-peaceful-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gorsuch-hammers-biden-doj-on-mostly-peaceful-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Gorsuch criticizes Biden DOJ over labeling protests as &#8216;mostly peaceful"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgorsuch-hammers-biden-doj-on-mostly-peaceful-protests%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2222711&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch queried \u200cthe Biden administration&#8217;s Justice Department \u200battorney about a federal law&#8217;s application to protesters in the Jan. \u200c6 Capitol riot.\u2062 The law \u2064in question involves &#8220;obstruction&#8221; of official proceedings. Gorsuch&#8217;s questions also extended to scenarios \u2062like peaceful protests\u200b causing obstruction. The discussion touched \u200con\u200b whether such actions fall under the law&#8217;s purview.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/supreme-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Supreme Court<\/a> Justice Neil Gorsuch on Tuesday questioned the Biden administration\u2019s ranking Justice Department lawyer about the scope of a federal criminal law used against protesters during the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/january-6\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jan. 6 riot<\/a> at the Capitol charged for \u201cobstruction\u201d of an official proceeding.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the four counts against former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a> in special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/donald-trump-indicted-assigned-judge-tanya-chutkan-known-for-longest-jan-6-sentences\/\" title=\"Donald Trump indicted; Judge Tanya Chutkan known for lengthy Jan. 6 sentences.\">election subversion case<\/a> are also related to the same question, which is whether the statute known as 1512(c)(2) that makes it a federal crime to \u201ccorruptly\u201d obstruct an official proceeding applies to otherwise nonviolent protesters. Gorsuch, an appointee of Trump, asked a range of questions, including whether a \u201cmostly peaceful protest\u201d would be covered under the law.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div>\n<blockquote data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<div lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>\u203c\ufe0f\u203c\ufe0f\u203c\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>Justices Gorsuch and Alito just annihilated the entire foundation of Biden\u2019s DOJ case against J6 protesters.<\/p>\n<p>They dunk on the US <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-announces-new-legal-team-for-impeachment-defense-after-previous-team-collapsed\/\" title=\"Trump Announces New Legal Team For Impeachment Defense After Previous Team Collapsed\">solicitor general<\/a> with examples of unhinged leftist psychos disrupting official proceedings, and ask why those protesters were never charged.\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ovEMZqBbmZ\">pic.twitter.com\/ovEMZqBbmZ<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2014 Meara (@MillennialOther) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MillennialOther\/status\/1780263177311211646?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 16, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The justice grilled Justice Department Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar on whether the same law could be applied to Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who was criminally charged for setting off a fire alarm in the Capitol last fall ahead of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nyc-crime-victim-blasts-bidens-border-policy-these-illegals-are-aggressive\/\" title=\"NYC crime victim criticizes Biden's border policy: 'Aggressive illegals'\">government funding vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWould a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler at today\u2019s audience qualify, or a heckler at the State of the Union address? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?\u201d Gorsuch asked without directly naming Bowman.<\/p>\n<p>Prelogar responded that \u201cto the extent that your hypotheticals are pressing on the idea of a peaceful protest, even one that\u2019s quite disruptive, it\u2019s not clear to me that the government would be able to show that each \u2026 of those protesters had corrupt intent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo a mostly peaceful protest \u2026 that actually obstructs and impedes an official proceeding for an indefinite period would not be covered?\u201d Gorsuch asked, noting in his hypothetical that \u201cthey intend to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>The phrase <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/2633154\/against-a-backdrop-of-burning-buildings-cnn-calls-kenosha-riot-a-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-protest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\" mostly peaceful protest>\u201cmostly peaceful protest\u201d<\/a> was repeated in public discourse during the summer of unrest in 2020, when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gun-control-protesters-show-up-in-tennessee-as-public-safety-special-session-begins\/\" title=\"Gun control protesters gather in Tennessee as 'public safety' special session commences.\">left-leaning protesters<\/a> took the streets across the United States in protest over the death of George Floyd, and it was used in a now-infamous chyron during a 2020 CNN broadcast, where a reporter stood in front of a burning structure in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<p>Prelogar told Gorsuch that if a hypothetical person intended \u201cto obstruct and we are able to show that they knew that it was wrongful conduct with a consciousness of wrongdoing, then yes, that is a 1512(c)(2) offense,\u201d Prelogar clarified.<\/p>\n<p>The defendant in the case that was argued on Tuesday, <em>Fischer v. United States<\/em>, is former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fischer, who is accused of being part of a crowd that pushed against Capitol Police officers while calling on those around him to \u201chold the line.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The core question is whether the law at issue was only intended to apply to evidence tampering and whether applying it to protesters who went into the Capitol was too broad of an interpretation. <\/p>\n<p>More than 300 other defendants from that day of protest and rioting have been charged with violating the same obstruction law, which was enacted in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the wake of the Enron scandal.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>Mike Davis, a conservative ally of Trump who formerly clerked for Gorsuch, said Prelogar \u201cproved the point of these Jan. 6 defendants \u2026 that the Biden Justice Department \u2026 took that vague and overbroad criminal and politicized it and weaponized it against Trump and Trump\u2019s Jan. 6 supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then she danced around on whether the government could use that statute against BLM and Antifa and left-wing activists,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The nine justices on Tuesday appeared divided along ideological lines, with six of the Republican-appointed members appearing wary of the DOJ\u2019s interpretations about the breadth of the criminal statute, while at least three jurists seeming open to finding a middle ground to interpreting the law.<\/p>\n<p>A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently asked the Biden administration&#8217;s top Justice Department attorney about the federal law applied to Jan. 6 rioters at the Capitol. The charges include &#8220;obstruction&#8221; of an official proceeding. This scrutiny comes amidst ongoing legal actions, including two of four counts against former President Donald Trump<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":2222712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/AP24068081715714-1024x683.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2222711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/AP24068081715714-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2222711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2222712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2222711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2222711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2222711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}