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

At former President Trump’s first rally since the presidential debate, he argued the nation’s “biggest problem” is not President Biden’s age and “decline,” but his destructive policies.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 1,000 at Historic Greenbrier Farms in Chesapeake, Virginia, Friday, Trump took a victory lap after the first 2024 presidential debate.

Trump told supporters every voter should ask one question before heading to the polls Nov. 5.

“The question every voter should be asking themselves today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate performance, but whether America can survive four more years of crooked Joe Biden in the White House,” he said.

TRUMP, BIDEN SPAR OVER GOLF HANDICAPS AS THEY TRY TO CONVINCE VOTERS THEY ARE NOT TOO OLD FOR THE PRESIDENCY

Former President Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, shakes hands with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin during a rally at Greenbrier Farms June 28, 2024, in Chesapeake, Va.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“Remember, the biggest problem for our country is not Joe Biden’s personal decline,” Trump said. “It’s that Joe Biden’s policies are causing America’s decline at a level that we’ve never seen before.

“That’s why this November, the people of Virginia and the people of America are going to tell crooked Joe Biden, ‘You’re fired.’”

Biden said he is committed to winning the election, brushing aside mounting calls from prominent Democrats to step aside following his disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump. (Cornell Watson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

President Biden addressed his campaign performance at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, saying, “I don’t debate as well as I used to.

BIDEN’S INNER CIRCLE SILENT AS PARTY REELS FOLLOWING ‘EMBARRASSING’ DEBATE PERFORMANCE

“I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done,” he told a roaring crowd that chanted “Four more years.”

“The choice in this election is simple,” Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”

President Biden and first lady Jill Biden delivered remarks at a campaign rally at the Jim Graham Building at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, N.C., June 28, 2024. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Biden’s age and mental acuity have been at the forefront as voters inch closer to Election Day.

Biden, 81, is the oldest president in history and has faced skepticism from voters and Republican lawmakers about his ability to do the job.

Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term, while Trump would be 82.

Kinky Friedman, author, singer-songwriter and former Texas gubernatorial candidate, died Thursday after a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Friedman was 79.

“He died peacefully,” close friend Kent Perkins, who knew Friedman for about 50 years, told the Associated Press in confirming the death. He said Friedman died at his family’s ranch near San Antonio.

“He smoked a cigar, went to bed and never woke up,” Perkins said.

Perkins described Friedman as the “last free person on earth” and said he had an “irreverence about him. He was a fearless writer.”

Friedman — born Richard Samet Friedman in Chicago on Nov. 1, 1944 — stirred buzz with his provocative and unapologetic nature, which became widely known when his band, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, found success in the 1970s.

The satirical country band released songs such as “Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life,” “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” and “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore.”

But the band’s brash nature was apparently not well received by some.

“In 1973, the Texas Jewboys received death threats in Nacogdoches, got bomb threats in New York, and required a police escort to escape radical feminists at the University of Buffalo,” the musician wrote in a personal essay for the September 2001 issue of Texas Monthly.

Friedman — who was nicknamed Kinky, or the Kinkster, because of his curly hair — then traveled with Bob Dylan in 1976 as part of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. By the 1980s, after his band’s success had cooled, Friedman turned to a new venture: writing.

He penned several New York-based crime novels, including “Greenwich Killing Time” and “Roadkill,” that featured himself as a detective. At the time of his death, Friedman had written more than 20 books.

Joking that he needed “a job right now,” Friedman elevated his profile when he challenged incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry in the 2006 Texas governor’s race, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The race became prickly. Friedman, one of five candidates, was hit with allegations of racism over remarks he made in 1980. He denied the accusations, stating that his style of humor was intended to draw reactions.

Offending people “was the purpose,” Friedman told the Houston Chronicle in 2006. “That’s what I was doing. That’s called social commentary, that’s called satire.”

He ran on a campaign that supported gay marriage (“I think they have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us”) and prayer in school (“What’s wrong with a kid believing in something?”) but ultimately finished in last place. Perry won reelection.

Reflecting on the race four years later, Friedman told The Times that more musicians should get into politics.

“If the musicians ran the country, we wouldn’t get a hell of a lot done in the morning, but we’d work late and we’d be honest,” he said. “When I’m in a roomful of musicians, those are decent people, good people. You can’t say the same about politicians.”

And he was still proud of his gubernatorial campaign.

“We won that race, by the way,” Friedman said, “every place but Texas.”