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By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Thursday urged a federal judge to toss out two obstruction charges central to the case that the former U.S. president illegally sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling raising the legal bar for those offenses.
Lawyers for Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, argued in a court filing that the Supreme Court's ruling requires U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss charges accusing Trump of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding – the congressional certification of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2021 – and conspiring to do so.
Trump is also seeking the dismissal of the 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 block the collection of votes and certification of his election defeat.
Trump's argument is based on 6-3 Supreme Court decision in June, in which the justices sided with a criminal defendant charged under the same obstruction law who was accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The court found that defendants charged under the law must have acted to impair “the availability or integrity" of documents or other records related to an official proceeding - or attempted to do so.
The indictment alleges that Trump attempted to disrupt the congressional session by creating fraudulent slates of presidential electors pledged to support him in battleground states he lost and then pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to accept those pro-Trump electors when Pence presided over the certification.
Trump's lawyers argued that prosecutors cannot show that Trump sought to impair evidence related to the election certification and cannot be held responsible for the conduct of rioters who delayed the congressional session.
The filing came a day after prosecutors provided a detailed account of their case against Trump as they argued it survives a separate U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)