As a result of her vote, the court’s majority left prosecutions of felon and former president Donald Trump unchanged (for now) and severely limited any impact on hundreds of other Jan. 6 insurrection cases. A tiny fraction of the Jan. 6 defendants will actually be affected.

The obstruction statute 18 U.S.C. Section 1512 (c)(1), at issue in many Jan. 6 cases, prohibits “altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a record, document, or other object with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding.” The court had to decide what actions are covered by the subsequent Section 1512(c)(2), which penalizes conduct that “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.”

What does “otherwise” mean? The court declined to either take the broadest or most narrow definition available. Instead, it held:

As we have explained, subsection (c)(1) refers to a defined set of offense conduct — four types of actions that, by their nature, impair the integrity or availability of records, documents, or objects for use in an official proceeding. When the phrase “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding” is read as having been given more precise content by that narrower list of conduct, subsection (c)(2) makes it a crime to impair the availability or integrity of records, documents, or objects used in an official proceeding in ways other than those specified in (c)(1). For example, it is possible to violate (c)(2) by creating false evidence — rather than altering incriminating evidence.

The crimes, such as creating false documents (say, phony electoral ballots), are covered, but general obstruction activities are not. The crime must be tethered to the objects and/or documents at issue in the proceeding.

The key to understanding the decision is Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s concurrence. She explained exactly what the court did:

Joseph Fischer was charged with violating §1512(c)(2) by corruptly obstructing “a proceeding before Congress, specifically, Congress’s certification of the Electoral college vote.” That official proceeding plainly used certain records, documents, or objects — including, among others, those relating to the electoral votes themselves. And it might well be that Fischer’s conduct, as alleged here, involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding “in ways other than those specified in (c)(1).” If so, then Fischer’s prosecution under §1512(c)(2) can, and should, proceed.

In other words, even this defendant might still be convicted of conduct related to records, documents or objects in the congressional proceeding if he was seeking to destroy the electoral ballots. (Fischer was also charged with other conduct under other statutes.)

“As Justice Jackson’s concurring opinion makes clear, the Court’s interpretation of Section 1512(c) is still broad enough to cover Fischer’s alleged conduct,” constitutional scholar Matthew Seligman, who authored an amicus brief for the case told me. “By violently storming the Capitol, the violent Jan. 6 rioters impaired the availability of the electoral certificates that Congress convened to count — Senate staffers had to flee the building with the certificates so they weren’t destroyed.” In short, Seligman concludes that “while the Court narrowed the government’s expansive interpretation, it did so in a way that will affect few — if any — actual Jan. 6 cases.”

In other words, creating electoral vote slates (as Trump allegedly did) would still be prosecutable. This decision therefore has essentially no impact on Trump, who was charged with four criminal counts including 1512(c)(2) and conspiracy to violate 1512(c)(2). His alleged involvement in concocting false electoral slates falls four-square within the court’s ruling. (Depending on the fine print, the court’s immunity case could still restrict his prosecution.)

As for the rest of the Jan. 6 insurrection defendants, the Justice Department in a statement released after the decision made clear: “The vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants charged for their illegal actions on January 6 will not be affected by this decision. There are no cases in which the Department charged a January 6 defendant only with the offense at issue in Fischer.”

Just Security co-founder Ryan Goodman explains how the media exaggerated the impact of Fischer. “A quarter of [the defendants] pleaded guilty but NOT to obstruction,” he emphasized. “They pleaded to other charges. Those charges and those sentences are utterly unaffected by Supreme Court’s ruling.” It is really a sliver of a sliver who might be affected.

For example, all 128 people convicted at trial under 1512(c)(2) were also convicted of other crimes. At worst, they would need to be resentenced if their 1512(c)(2) conduct did not fall within the Supreme Court’s opinion. Beyond that, the legal gurus at Just Security found that for the “71 defendants who have been charged under Section 1512(c)(2) and are still awaiting trial, all of them are charged with crimes in addition to 1512(c)(2), and a majority are charged with one or more other felonies.” Depending on the facts, their 1512(c)(2) charge could either be dropped or their sentencing could proceed as charged.

Of the very small number of defendants (48) who pleaded to obstruction under 1512(c)(2), 22 were also charged with another felony. The other 26 pleaded just to a 1512(c)(2) count; all but 11 of those could be charged with another felony such as civil disorder and theft of government property.

A grand total of 11 defendants — who pleaded only to a 1512(c)(2) offense with no other felonies available — conceivably might have those reduced to misdemeanors. (There are also a group of 73 people either convicted at trial or waiting for trial on 1512(c)(2) plus one or more misdemeanors.) That is it. Fischer in no way opens the prison doors, and it certainly gives Trump absolutely no comfort.

This is not to tout the reasonableness of the right-wing majority. Having snatched immense powers from the executive branch and Congress this term, the court’s unbridled activism is undeniable. We certainly have seen an untrammeled imperial court dragging government back to the 1920s (on nonregulation of air, water, workplace safety, etc.) and individual rights to the 19th century. It has run roughshod over our democracy, which empowers the people’s elected representatives to make policy decisions. Rather, Fischer stands as a lonely exception, an example of judicial finesse.

Two points deserve further mention. Most vividly, this case serves as yet another glaring example of the mainstream media’s rush to hysterical conclusions. Overwrought headlines after the decision came down suggested hundreds of cases would be overturned. Those were inaccurate. Precision should take precedence over clickbait. Second, if Trump gets more appointees for the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal bench in a second term, there might be no brake on the damage this court can do. The prospect that the court could get worse should send chills up and down the spines of all Americans.

Roughly comparable to the more advanced American JDAM guided bombs, these glide bombs are large Soviet-era munitions retrofitted with guidance systems that experts say often fail — resulting in impacts on Russian territory.

The majority of the bombs were discovered by civilians — forest rangers, farmers or residents of villages surrounding the city. In most cases, the Defense Ministry didn’t know when the bombs had been launched, indicating that some of them could have been there for days.

According to the document, at least four bombs fell on the city of Belgorod itself, a regional hub with a population of about 400,000 people. An additional seven were found in the surrounding suburbs. The most, 11, fell in the Graivoron border region where some could not be recovered because of the “difficult operational situation.”

The document, originally intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence and passed on to The Post, includes a spreadsheet of incidents citing emergency decrees on bomb cleanup and evacuation and appears to be a product of the Belgorod city emergency department.

Astra, an independent Russian media outlet, verified that many of the incidents in the document matched those it had collected from local governments and reports in local news media. People mentioned as witnesses have been confirmed as residents.

While the bombs usually fail to detonate, one of the first recorded hitting Belgorod in April 2023 did explode when it crashed into a normally busy street, creating a crater 65 feet wide, shattering windows, and hurling parked cars onto roofs of buildings. The impact happened at night, however, and no casualties were reported. A day later a second, unexploded bomb was found buried 23 feet into the ground.

Russian military acknowledged at the time that the “accidental release of aircraft munition” from a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber was behind the explosion. The document later confirmed it was FAB-500, a glide bomb, carrying a 500 kilogram, or 1,100 pound, payload.

Local authorities generally remain quiet about the incidents, only reporting “accidents,” blaming Ukrainian shelling or just not reporting the various explosions rattling the area, particularly more recently.

On May 4 — after the period covered by the document — another bomb fell on Belgorod, injuring seven people and damaging more than 30 houses in a small community. Citing a source in the emergency services, the Astra media outlet reported it was also a FAB-500.

Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said only that “an explosion happened.”

“The governor always reports what exactly caused the explosion, but this time he decided not to disclose it,” independent local outlet Pepel noted at the time. “This indirectly confirms that the explosion was caused by a Russian air bomb that fell on the house during the bombing. The nature of the destruction also indicates this.”

On May 12, another blast destroyed several stories of an apartment block in Belgorod, killing 17 people. The Russian military blamed a Ukrainian missile, while the Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian research group specializing in open-source investigations, said video from the scene indicated it was the result of another accidental FAB-500 bombing or a rogue antiaircraft missile fired by a Russian defense system.

On June 15, an explosion took place in the town of Shebekino, near Belgorod, and part of a five-story building collapsed, killing at least five, likely another glide bomb mishap.

According to its own tallies, Astra estimated that Russia has accidentally dropped more than a hundred bombs on its own territory as well as occupied areas in eastern Ukraine over the past four months — the same period that has seen a major increase in the use of glide bombs.

The Russian government has not responded to a request for comment on the document or reports of failed glide bombs.

The glide bombs are a Soviet relic hailing from the Cold War, designed as “dumb bombs” to be dropped on a target. Russia adapted this large inventory of unguided bombs to modern warfare by retrofitting them with guidance systems known as UMPK kits — cheap pop-out wings and navigation systems.

This allows Russian Su-34 and Su-35 jets to launch them from a distance of about 40 miles, which is out of reach for most Ukrainian air defense systems.

“A certain percentage of Russian bombs is defective. This problem has existed since they started using these UMPK kits and it’s not being fundamentally solved. We think these accidental releases are caused by the unreliability of these kits, something that does not seem to bother the Air Force,” Ruslan Leviev, a military expert with the Conflict Intelligence Group that has been tracking Russian military activities in Ukraine since 2014, said in a recent front line update.

Since developing the weapons and especially with the start of 2024, Russia has launched hundreds and hundreds of these bombs at Ukrainian positions, indicating a fairly low, but not insignificant rate of failure.

“According to our estimates, only a fraction of these bombs fail, so it doesn’t affect the practical effectiveness of this weapon, no matter how cynical that may sound,” Leviev said. “Unlike Western high-precision bombs, the UMPK kits are produced relatively cheaply and in large quantities, using civilian electronics, where reliability requirements are much lower.”

Glide bombs are also not as precise as cruise missiles, and often miss the target, but because of sheer explosive power they still do significant damage.

The glide bombs have put added pressure on Ukraine’s ground-based air defenses and have been instrumental in Russia’s demolition of Avdiivka, which its troops conquered in mid-February, marking its most significant gain since the capture of Bakhmut a year ago.

“Those weapons allow Russia to supplement an inadequate inventory of tactical air-launched missiles and to avoid using free-fall bombs that expose pilots to a greater risk of being shot down,” according to recent analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Ukraine’s best defense against them is the U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missile that can destroy a Russian aircraft before it approaches to release the bomb, but the systems are in short supply.

In late March, the Defense Ministry announced the development of a new, heavier version of the glide bomb, the FAB-3000, weighing twice as much as the next-biggest model. The number corresponds to the weight in kilograms, making it more than 6,000 pounds. It was finally deployed June 21 against the Ukrainian village of Liptsy.

The ministry also said the production of the lighter FAB-500 and FAB-1500 had been drastically increased.

The push to save Biden’s candidacy, which is ongoing as the president is spending time with his family at Camp David, appears to have at least temporarily stemmed the flood of public doubt and bought the president some time. Still, the ambitious and frenzied effort by the president’s aides, supporters and family members to contain the damage after Biden struggled to make a coherent case against Republican rival Donald Trump during the debate on Thursday. It has also become a case study of a campaign thrust into crisis.

As of Sunday, no major Democratic official has called for Biden to drop out of the race and several have publicly expressed renewed support for him, even as they note that his debate performance has prompted worries about the party’s showing in November.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) acknowledged on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” that House Democrats are involved in conversations over the future of Biden’s candidacy. He noted that, because the House will be in recess next week for the Fourth of July, those conversations will continue over the phone and virtually.

But he added that “one thing should be clear: There is a big difference between our view of the world, the country and the future, and the extreme MAGA Republican view.”

Biden’s performance on Thursday “certainly was a setback,” Jeffries added. “But of course, I believe a setback is nothing more than a setup for a comeback.”

Other top Democrats — including Reps. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and James E. Clyburn (S.C.), and Sens. Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.) and Chris Coons (Del.) — all appeared on various television channels Sunday to recommit to backing the president’s reelection bid.

The public show of support came on the heels of a harried private effort that began even before the debate ended on Thursday, as private group chats, hushed conversations and social media teemed with consternation about Democrats’ prospects.

Biden aides began telling the media as the debate was underway that the president had a cold, rationalizing his thin, raspy voice and unsteady delivery. Vice President Harris said immediately afterward that his “slow start” was not a sign of a broader weakness, and campaign surrogates in the spin room tried to shift the focus from Biden’s stumbles to Trump’s falsehoods and extreme comments.

The push continued Friday and through the weekend, including a rush of activity by Biden, his wife, Jill, and other allies that came against the backdrop of top editorial boards, columnists and Democratic commentators calling on the president to exit the race.

In the days since the debate, a wave of influential voices that have previously backed Biden, including New Yorker editor David Remnick, New York Times columnists Tom Friedman and Nick Kristof, and “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, have called on the president to pull out of the race or at least seriously consider it.

During a virtual Democratic National Committee meeting Saturday, which was hastily scheduled less than 24 hours before, leaders implored their members to stick behind Biden.

“We have to have his back,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said, according to members on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. Harrison acknowledged that Biden had not gotten younger, but emphasized the message that he was not a liar like Trump, one person recalled.

However, the call did not provide an opportunity for members to share their concerns with the party’s leaders; there was no question-and-answer session and the chat function was disabled. Such moves frustrated members who had hoped for a more honest conversation about the party’s difficult path forward.

Party leaders and campaign officials, instead, bragged about their fundraising success, yard sign distribution, house parties and surrogate events. They explained a strategy to bring in social media influencers to the Democratic convention in Chicago.

Harrison concluded the call by telling the members he was going on a Disney cruise, fulfilling a promise he made to his children. The event did not eliminate doubts, while stoking the frustration of some.

“It’s a confident bunch,” said one person who participated. “This is all competent. But who knows if it is enough.”

One Democratic House member said the call was “terrible” and the message wasn’t based in reality.

Jeffries and other Democrats in House leadership have been privately telling worried lawmakers from competitive districts to stay quiet for a few more days and see what happens, the member said.

Despite the pressure campaign, at least some elected Democrats are publicly voicing their concerns and others are awaiting polling numbers before speaking out one way or the other.

Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said there was a “big problem with Joe Biden’s debate performance.”

“There are very honest and serious and rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party,” he said.

For his part, Biden has tried to showcase a more forceful public visage than the stumbling, raspy-voiced debater millions of Americans watched at the prime-time event his campaign negotiated and advocated for.

He has held several events in recent days, including a raucous rally in Raleigh, N.C., where he vigorously prosecuted the case against Trump while debuting a new line acknowledging his age and limitations directly.

“I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said, his voice rising as the crowd responded in kind. “But … I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job.”

Several Democrats have pointed to the Raleigh event as a critical moment of reassurance, even as they questioned the sharp difference between the president’s performance at the debate and his rally appearance one day later.

“That is the Joe Biden we all know and love, and frankly the one we had hoped would have shown up on the debate stage,” said Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist who remains committed to backing Biden’s reelection.

Cardona, who was on the DNC call on Saturday, dismissed the “tangential chatter from strategists and pundits and editorial boards” calling on Biden to drop out.

“They don’t really matter,” she said. “What really matters are the elected officials, the donors and the voters.”

Around the same time Biden was rallying in Raleigh, he received a critical message of support from former president Barack Obama, whose own shaky debate in 2012 also rocked his reelection bid.

“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” Obama posted on social media Friday afternoon. “But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”

Back at Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., several staffers gathered to watch the rally Friday, standing up and celebrating as they saw a more energized Biden in front of a crowd of more than 2,000 supporters.

During an all-hands staff meeting afterward, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon sought to rally the troops, acknowledging the rough night and encouraging aides to focus on drawing a sharp contrast with Trump.

“We’ve all been through hard times,” she told the gathered staff, according to a recording of the meeting. “We’ve all wished something went a little bit better than maybe it did. And then our job and our decision is, can we keep going to fight for it and make sure we put in the work, and that’s what I think the president has done.”

In a series of memos, the campaign has sought to downplay the concerns of pundits and commentators who claimed Biden had done irreparable harm to his candidacy during the debate. They have pointed to a flood of donations — more than $33 million so far since Thursday — and other metrics that suggest voters are still on board with Biden.

On Saturday, O’Malley Dillon released a memo saying that despite the poor performance, little had changed about a race that she had long expected would remain close until the end. She suggested that any polls that showed Biden bleeding support would only be temporary and the result of “overblown media narratives.”

Hours later, deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty went a step further in a sharply worded memo to supporters aimed at forcefully combating those who have tried to force Biden out of the race.

“The bedwetting brigade is calling for Joe Biden to ‘drop out,’” he wrote. “That is the best possible way for Donald Trump to win and us to lose. First of all: Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, period. End of story. Voters voted.”

He suggested that Biden stepping aside would lead to weeks of chaos and internal fighting among Democrats, all serving to boost Trump’s chances.

Such an argument must weigh heavily on Biden’s mind as he considers his place in history and thinks about the implications of what it would mean to end his presidential bid prematurely, said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian.

“Biden holds all the cards here,” he said. “As long as he says he’s going to run, he gets to keep running. It doesn’t matter what Tom Friedman says. It doesn’t matter what Nick Kristof says. It’s Biden’s decision.”

Mariana Alfaro and Leigh Ann Caldwell contributed to this report.