Donald Trump on Thursday urged a federal judge to dismiss two obstruction charges at the center of the case that the former US president made illegal, citing a recent US Supreme Court decision extending the legal bar for those crimes. Had sought to reverse his 2020 election defeat.
Lawyers for Republican presidential nominee Trump argued in a court filing that the Supreme Court’s ruling requires U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss charges against Trump of corruptly obstructing official proceedings – January Congressional certification of his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. 6, 2021 – and are plotting to do so.
Trump is also seeking to dismiss two other charges in the indictment on other grounds.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment accusing him of a multi-part conspiracy to prevent the collection of votes and certification of his election defeat.
Trump’s argument is based on a 6-3 Supreme Court decision in June, in which the justices sided with a criminal defendant charged under the same obstruction law as someone who was accused of participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The court found that the defendants charged under the law must have acted – or attempted to do so – to impair the “availability or integrity” of documents or other records relating to official proceedings.
The indictment alleges that Trump attempted to disrupt a session of Congress by creating fake lists of presidential electors who pledged to support him in battleground states where he lost and then-Vice President Mike Pence was pressured to acknowledge those pro-Trump voters when Pence presided over the certification.
Trump’s lawyers argued that prosecutors could not show that Trump tried to tamper with evidence related to the election certification and that he could not be held responsible for the conduct of the rioters who delayed the congressional session.
The filing came a day after prosecutors provided a detailed description of their case against Trump as they argued it avoids a separate U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
