Less Than 6%

1/Don't believe the hype

The truth: Supreme Court ruling on #January6th obstruction charge materially affects at most only 5.9% of all Jan. 6th cases.

Some media get this wrong.

I teamed up with two greats—Mary McCord @AWeissmann_—to look at DOJ data⤵️https://t.co/siTHOg1vIc

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) June 28, 2024

3/ Many in media mistakenly focus on all defendants DOJ charged with obstruction.

The truth: A quarter of them pleaded guilty but NOT to obstruction. They pleaded to other charges.

Those charges and those sentences are utterly unaffected by Supreme Court’s ruling.

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) June 28, 2024

5/ Of the very small number of defendants (48) who pleaded to obstruction and no other offense: a majority of them can be recharged with felonies (per a proviso in plea agreement allowing for this scenario).

The all-important proviso.⤵️ pic.twitter.com/cBZZttyIjL

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) June 28, 2024

7/ Mary McCord, @AWeissmann_ and I also make this point:

"The Trump administration’s Department of Justice was the first to use this specific obstruction statute – 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) – to prosecute individuals who participated in the Capitol riot."https://t.co/siTHOg0XSE

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) June 28, 2024

Tl:dr:

There are no cases in which the Department charged a January 6 defendant only with the offense at issue in Fischer. For the cases affected by today’s decision, the Department will take appropriate steps to comply with the Court’s ruling," Garland also said. 

Of the defendants who face misdemeanors, just 2.3 percent, or 33 people, face charges using Section 1512(c)(2), the law the Court decided on Friday. Those defendants also face other crimes, but are also only misdemeanors.

Frankly, the case overruling Chevron is more important.