A federal judge has thrown out a felony obstruction charge leveled against a Jan. 6 defendant, saying the man’s alleged conduct doesn’t fall under the statute used by prosecutors in dozens of cases related to the 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols dismissed one of the 12 counts against defendant Garret A. Miller, 35, of Richardson, Texas.
In a 29-page ruling (
pdf) on March 7, Nichols, a Trump nominee, wrote that the federal indictment of Miller doesn’t allege the kind of conduct covered by 18 § U.S.C. 1512(c)(2), which relates to the destruction of records or documents—not the attempt to prevent the counting of presidential electors by Congress.
29 pages:
https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/up ... 72.0_2.pdf
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Nothing in Count Three (or the Indictment more generally) alleges, let alone implies, that Miller took some action with respect to a document, record, or other object in order to corruptly obstruct, impede or influence Congress’s certification of the electoral vote,” Nichols wrote, granting Miller’s motion to dismiss the charge.
The subsection of 18 § U.S.C. used widely by prosecutors against Jan. 6 defendants was approved by Congress as part of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, to close a loophole in the law that was discovered in the wake of the Enron corporate fraud and accounting scandal.
Nichols wrote that the subsection was intended by Congress to have a narrow, limited focus related to the destruction of documents. It’s part of a section of the U.S. Code titled “Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant.”
Even though the wording could be interpreted in various ways, in such a situation, “
the Court must ‘exercise restraint in assessing the reach of a federal criminal statute,’” Nichols wrote, citing United States v. Aguilar.
Miller still faces a range of charges for civil disorder, assaulting, impeding, or resisting police, interstate threats to injure or kidnap, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, and others. Prosecutors allege Miller threatened U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) when he posted on Twitter, “Assassinate AOC.”
Miller also stated in a social media post, “It was not a coup. We where [sic] gentle with police. We where unharmed. We overwhelmed them but did not injure them.”
Prosecutors have tried to stretch the law “beyond its plain meaning and beyond the intent of Congress when it enacted it,” 