Politics
Supreme Court could save ‘Cowboys for Trump’ leader after D.C. panel rejects him
Earlier this year in Fischer v. United States, the Supreme Court narrowed a federal obstruction law used against Jan. 6 defendants, overturning a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington. That same appeals court just upheld a Jan. 6 defendant’s federal trespass conviction, setting up a potential appeal for the justices to curb that law, too.
Tuesday’s decision came in the case of Cowboys for Trump leader Couy Griffin, who was convicted in 2022 under the trespass law that bars people from knowingly entering or remaining in “any restricted building or grounds” without lawful authority. Such an area is defined under the law as “any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area” where a Secret Service protectee “is or will be temporarily visiting.”
Griffin, who in January 2021 was an elected county commissioner in New Mexico, argued that people can only be convicted under that law if they know the basis for restricting the area is to safeguard a Secret Service protectee.
But a divided three-judge appellate panel held Tuesday that “knowingly breaching the restricted area suffices, even without knowing the basis of the restriction — here, the presence of Vice President Pence at the Capitol on January 6 — which merely confirms that such trespasses are within Congress’s legislative authority.”
The two judges in the majority, Barack Obama appointee Cornelia Pillard and Bill Clinton appointee Judith Rogers, noted that a different reading “would impair the Secret Service’s ability to protect its charges.” They concluded that “[n]either the text nor the context of the statute supports that reading.”
Dissenting, Donald Trump appointee Gregory Katsas argued that the law puts a greater burden on the government than the majority thinks. He said that on top of proving Griffin’s knowledge that the Capitol grounds “were posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted,” prosecutors also had to prove that he knew Pence was present “when he entered or remained in those restricted grounds.”
Ultimately, Katsas’ opinion could carry the day — or at least help Griffin get his case to the justices. Indeed, in the Fischer case that narrowed Jan. 6 obstruction charges, Katsas dissented from the majority panel ruling that the Supreme Court overturned in June.
And in Griffin’s case, Katsas noted that federal prosecutors had secured over 470 convictions under the law and that, in all of them, “criminal liability may turn on whether the defendant had to know that Vice President Pence was present at the time of the trespass.” Katsas added that the trial judges in Washington “are deeply divided on that question; six have answered yes, while ten have answered no.”
Both the broad impact of an issue and division over it can lead to the Supreme Court stepping in.
The justices declined to take up a separate appeal from Griffin in March. That appeal related to him being barred from office after Jan. 6. He was barred from state office as opposed to federal office in the case of Trump, whom the high court cleared to run for president again despite the insurrection. But Griffin may have a better outcome if he petitions the justices to review his trespass conviction.
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Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
Around a hundred Samurai Blue superfans crowded the Old Ambassador’s Residence at the Japanese embassy in Washington, on Sunday for a watch party marking its World Cup opener against the Netherlands.
The supporters — a motley group including erstwhile English teachers in Japan, state department workers and embassy staffers — lounged around a projector set in the building’s front room, plates piled high with nigiri. Drinking Kirin Ichiban lager and Asahi Super Dry, they winced when the Dutch team had the ball in the opposing third and burst into cheers and sang “Vamos Nippon” when Daichi Kamada’s header tied the game in the 89th minute.
“The World Cup itself is a competition,” said Masatsugu Odaira, the embassy’s minister of public affairs, at the watch party. “But from the perspective of policy and diplomacy, it’s a very good chance to connect people across borders.”
At the event, Blue Light News spoke to soccer fans who are already excited about Japan’s growing diplomatic footprint and soft power projection. And they hope the World Cup will buoy that cultural momentum, stimulating tourism — one of the nation’s most lucrative sectors — and drawing eyes to Japan.
The World Cup is “just a visceral way to connect people who have not yet had the opportunity to travel to Japan to be swept up in the enthusiasm of an international competition,” said Andrew Wylegala, president of the National Association of Japan-America Societies.
Japan is already “at the top of its game” in terms of soft power projection, Wylegala added — and “soccer now fits in with that.”
Embassy staff wore pink shirts with the American and Japanese flags on the back. “Together We Bloom,” they read.
The end result, a 2-2 draw against the Dutch, the world’s eighth ranked international side, only added to their enthusiasm.
The women’s team has a far more prolific record. Fans still hark back to their 2011 World Cup final victory over the U.S., months after a massive earthquake and tsunami slammed the country.
But the men’s team has won just seven World Cup games in its history. Japan’s best-ever finish: The round of 16, where they’ve fallen four separate times.
But there’s hope that, this year, the underdogs could pull off an upset. From Ajax’s Takehiro Tomiyasu to Kamada, a Crystal Palace midfielder, the Samurai Blue have more than enough talent to compete with the sport’s upper crust.
Odaira’s hope for this year? “Oh, becoming a champion,” he said.
No European country has infuriated Donald Trump more than Spain. Now it’s desperate to win his World Cup.
Teenage superstar Lamine Yamal, Rodri and co. enter the tournament as joint favorites alongside France. With the U.S. president apparently intent on making this a World Cup that projects his personal influence and America’s soft power, victory would be sweet for Spanish soccer fans — but especially so for their prime minister.
Outspoken socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, a supporter of Atlético Madrid, has clashed spectacularly with Trump over the Iran war, but also regarding NATO spending and Israel’s assault in Gaza. Meanwhile their policies on issues from energy to immigration could hardly be further apart.
Read the full story about the failing Washington-Madrid relationship here.
LOS ANGELES — In many World Cup host cities, competing teams also find themselves jostling for soft-power supremacy around their matches. But before its first match tomorrow in Los Angeles, New Zealand has had the diplomatic landscape all to itself.
New Zealand is scheduled to face Iran, which has not had formal diplomatic relations with the United States since 1980. Even as President Donald Trump claims an end to the countries’ monthslong war is at hand, Iran will be competing in the World Cup under severe travel restrictions. The team has been forced from its original Tucson training camp to Tijuana, and is being forced to effectively commute to its matches in the U.S. without a full government delegation.
That has left New Zealand alone in pressing its off-field agenda in Los Angeles. On Sunday evening, New Zealand consul-general Katja Ackerley opened her Brentwood mansion to a “New Zealand on the World Stage” networking reception sponsored by the government agencies overseeing the country’s trade, sport and foreign-investment portfolios.
“It’s all about soft power, it’s all about person-to-person,” said Peter Miskimmin, the government’s head of sports diplomacy. “We are building relations through sport rather than bringing up arms against one another.”
The country’s Los Angeles diplomatic outpost typically focuses on promoting exports of wine and lamb, expediting visas for Hollywood personnel traveling for location shoots and addressing the perpetual crisis of “Kiwis losing their passports in Las Vegas,” as one previous inhabitant of the office put it.
A delegation of New Zealand officials was preparing for their first World Cup appearance since 2010 uncertain whether any of their opposite numbers from Iran would attend, and how that might affect the standard match-day pageantry.
“This is our first World Cup in 16 years so we can’t tell what’s different,” said James Wear, a general manager of the New Zealand Football Association. “We don’t have anything to compare.”
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