Trump moves to toss Jan. 6 obstruction charges

4/10/2024 6:21

        Donald Trump on Thursday urged a federal judge to toss out
        two obstruction charges central to the case that the former U.S.
        president illegally sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat,
        citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling raising the legal bar
        for those offenses.
        
        Lawyers for Trump, the Republican presidential candidate,
        argued in a court filing that the Supreme Court's ruling
        requires U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss charges
        accusing Trump of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding –
        the congressional certification of his loss to Democrat Joe
        Biden on Jan. 6, 2021 – and conspiring to do so.
        
        Trump is also seeking the dismissal of the two other charges
        in the indictment on other grounds.
        
        Trump has pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment
        accusing him of a multi-part conspiracy to block the collection
        of votes and certification of his election defeat.
        
        Trump's argument is based on 6-3 Supreme Court decision in
        June, in which the justices sided with a criminal defendant
        charged under the same obstruction law who was accused of taking
        part in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
        
        The court found that defendants charged under the law must
        have acted to impair “the availability or integrity" of
        documents or other records related to an official proceeding -
        or attempted to do so.
        
        The indictment alleges that Trump attempted to disrupt the
        congressional session by creating fraudulent slates of
        presidential electors pledged to support him in battleground
        states he lost and then pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence
        to accept those pro-Trump electors when Pence presided over the
        certification.
        
        Trump's lawyers argued that prosecutors cannot show that
        Trump sought to impair evidence related to the election
        certification and cannot be held responsible for the conduct of
        rioters who delayed the congressional session.
        
        The filing came a day after prosecutors provided a detailed
        account of their case against Trump as they argued it survives a
        separate U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.