Politics
Column: A Supreme Court ruling may help Jan. 6 rioters. Here's why it's less likely to help Trump
The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer vs. United States, which came down among a bevy of blockbuster opinions Friday, was much anticipated for its potential impact on the prosecutions of hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters as well as former President Trump, who was charged under the same law. The court’s ruling was largely of a piece with the conservative justices’ proclivity for narrowing criminal laws they perceive as imprecise and likely to trap the unwary. The majority opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. contends that the Justice Department’s position on the obstruction statute at hand would “criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct.”
The decision is of course good news for Joseph Fischer, a Jan. 6 defendant who moved to dismiss one of the charges against him. Fischer barged into the Capitol on that day and was also charged with assaulting a federal officer, among other offenses. But the court held that he could not be charged under a federal law against obstructing an official proceeding for joining the melee that delayed the certification of the 2020 presidential election, ruling that the law is limited to conduct affecting the integrity or availability of records that could be evidence in an official proceeding.
Trump will certainly try to argue that the court’s decision also requires dismissal of two counts against him under the same law in the federal Jan. 6 case. Many of the rioters were, like Fischer, charged under the statute and could benefit from the ruling as well. But the decision isn’t likely to favor the majority of the marauders, and it’s even less likely to help Trump.
In the case of the rioters, a study in Just Security persuasively suggests that even if the statute is unavailable to charge them in the wake of the Fischer decision, the government can still prosecute the same conduct in other ways.
The ruling probably won’t be useful to Trump for another reason.
The lawyerly debate in Fischer comes down to the meaning of the word “otherwise.” Following a section of the law that prohibits altering or mutilating a record, the law goes on to criminalize conduct that “otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding.“ The question is whether the law thereby applies to any obstruction of an official proceeding or only to acts that affect the integrity or availability of records to be used in the proceeding.
But Trump’s alleged conduct certainly affected the integrity or availability of records, namely the valid slates of presidential electors. His purported scheme was designed to undermine the legal impact of those slates and replace them with fraudulent certificates forged at the behest of his inner circle.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s concurring opinion in the case underscores this point. After endorsing the majority’s understanding of “otherwise,” she concludes that Fischer might still be charged under the statute because the “official proceeding” in question “plainly used certain records, documents, or objects — including, among others, those relating to the electoral votes themselves.”
Jackson’s hypothetical analysis concerns Fischer himself, but it seems she also means it to encompass the conduct of the former president. While Trump is not alleged to have destroyed or altered a document, he is alleged to have “otherwise” impaired the legal effectiveness of the certificates.
The dissenting opinion in the case, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, is an interesting postscript. Barrett argues that the government’s reading of the text of the statute might be expansive but is in keeping with its plain meaning. The opinion is among those suggesting Barrett, a Trump appointee, is staking out the center of the court in certain important cases.
But the most pressing question raised by this decision and the presidential immunity opinion expected Monday is whether they will undermine the various criminal charges against the former president. The bottom line in this case is that it shouldn’t, and I don’t think it will. Trump will surely move to dismiss the charges on this basis, but I expect U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to reject that argument, which would allow the case to proceed as charged — unless, of course, the defendant returns to the White House and makes the entire prosecution go away.
Harry Litman is the host of the “Talking Feds” podcast and the Talking San Diego speaker series. @harrylitman
Politics
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
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A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stopping subsidies on childcare programs in five states, including Minnesota, amid allegations of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the states had met the legal threshold to maintain the “status quo” on funding for at least two weeks while arguments continue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns.
The programs include the Child Care and Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant, all of which help needy families.
USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Families who rely on childcare and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
The states, which include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, argued in court filings that the federal government didn’t have the legal right to end the funds and that the new policy is creating “operational chaos” in the states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at his nomination hearing in 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In total, the states said they receive more than $10 billion in federal funding for the programs.
HHS said it had “reason to believe” that the programs were offering funds to people in the country illegally.
‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’: SENATE REPUBLICANS PRESS GOV WALZ OVER MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
The table above shows the five states and their social safety net funding for various programs which are being withheld by the Trump administration over allegations of fraud. (AP Digital Embed)
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to HHS for comment.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.
“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY
Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
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Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”
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