Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-22-10348/USCOURTS-ca9-22-10348-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ahmad Abouammo
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

AHMAD ABOUAMMO, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-10348 

D.C. No. 

3:19-cr-00621-

EMC-1 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Edward M. Chen, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted May 16, 2024

San Francisco, California

Filed December 4, 2024

Before: Kenneth K. Lee and Daniel A. Bress, Circuit 

Judges, and Yvette Kane,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Bress;

Concurrence by Judge Lee

* The Honorable Yvette Kane, United States District Judge for the 

Middle District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

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2 USA V. ABOUAMMO

SUMMARY**

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed Ahmad Abouammo’s convictions for 

acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government or 

official, 18 U.S.C. § 951; conspiracy to commit wire and 

honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1349; wire and honest 

services fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346; international 

money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i); and 

falsification of records to obstruct a federal investigation, 18 

U.S.C. § 1519. 

Abouammo, an employee at the company then known as 

Twitter, allegedly provided confidential information about 

dissident Saudi Twitter users to Bader Binasaker, a close 

associate of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In 

return, Abouammo received a lavish wristwatch and 

hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from 

Binasaker. A jury convicted Abouammo for his role in this 

arrangement and his efforts to cover it up. 

Abouammo argued that the evidence was insufficient to 

convict him under § 951, for acting as an unregistered agent 

of a foreign government or official, because Binasaker was 

not a foreign “official.” The panel concluded that it is 

unnecessary to resolve this issue because an alternative 

theory—that Abouammo acted at the behest of a foreign 

government—sufficiently supports the jury’s verdict. 

Regardless, a rational jury could conclude that Binasaker 

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 3

was a foreign “official” even under Abouammo’s narrow 

construction of that term.

Abouammo challenged his convictions for money 

laundering and wire fraud as time barred. Rejecting this 

challenge, the panel held that when the government secured 

a superseding indictment within six months of the dismissal 

of an information filed within the limitations period, the 

government complied with 18 U.S.C. § 3288, which, with 

one exception not applicable here, categorically excludes 

from “any statute of limitations” bar a “new indictment . . . 

returned in the appropriate jurisdiction within six calendar 

months” of the dismissal of an “information charging a 

felony.” The superseding indictment was therefore timely. 

Abouammo argued that his conviction for falsification of 

records with intent to obstruct a federal investigation in 

violation of § 1519 should be dismissed due to improper 

venue. Rejecting this argument, the panel held that a 

prosecution under § 1519 may take place in the venue where 

the documents were wrongfully falsified or in the venue in 

which the obstructed investigation was taking 

place. Abouammo’s act of making a false document “with 

the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence” a federal 

investigation continued until the document was received by 

the person or persons whom it was intended to affect or 

influence. Here, the document was received by FBI agents 

working out of the FBI’s San Francisco office, so venue in 

the Northern District of California was proper. 

In an accompanying memorandum disposition, the panel 

vacated Abouammo’s sentence and remanded for 

resentencing.

Concurring, Judge Lee agreed with Judge Bress’ 

opinion, including his analysis of why Abouammo’s venue 

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4 USA V. ABOUAMMO

argument fails under circuit precedent. He wrote separately 

to highlight that the decision does not give free rein to the 

government to manufacture venue and that the court should 

scrutinize potential fig-leaf justifications in future cases.

COUNSEL

Jeffrey M. Smith (argued), Appellate Counsel; Matthew G. 

Olsen, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; 

National Security Division, United States Department of 

Justice, Washington, D.C.; Eric Cheng, Colin C. Sampson, 

Merry J. Chan, Assistant United States Attorneys; Ismail J. 

Ramsey, United States Attorney; United States Department 

of Justice, Office of the United States Attorney, San 

Francisco, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Carmen A. Smarandoiu (argued) and Angela Chuang, 

Assistant Federal Public Defenders; Jodi Linker, Federal 

Public Defender; Federal Public Defenders Office, San 

Francisco, California; for Defendant-Appellant. 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 5

OPINION

BRESS, Circuit Judge:

Ahmad Abouammo, an employee at the company then 

known as Twitter, allegedly provided confidential 

information about dissident Saudi Twitter users to a close 

associate of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of the 

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In return, Abouammo received a 

lavish wristwatch and hundreds of thousands of dollars in

payments from his Saudi contact. For his role in this

arrangement and his efforts to cover it up, a jury convicted 

Abouammo for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign 

government or official, 18 U.S.C. § 951, conspiracy to 

commit wire and honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1349,

wire and honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346, 

international money laundering, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), and falsification of records to obstruct a

federal investigation, 18 U.S.C. § 1519. 

We affirm Abouammo’s convictions but vacate his 

sentence and remand for resentencing.1 

I

A

In 2013, Twitter hired Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, as a 

Media Partnerships Manager for the Middle East and North 

Africa region. In this role, Abouammo was to help onboard 

influential content creators to Twitter and serve as a liaison 

to persons of influence in his geographic territory. At this 

1 This opinion addresses Abouammo’s challenges to his convictions. In 

an accompanying memorandum disposition, we address Abouammo’s 

sentence.

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6 USA V. ABOUAMMO

time, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) had fifty percent 

of Twitter’s users in the region, and it was identified as a key 

prospect for growing Twitter’s business. 

In June 2014, a group of Saudi entrepreneurs visited 

Twitter’s offices in San Francisco. Abouammo arranged a 

tour for the group. During the visit, Abouammo met Bader 

Binasaker, a close associate and “right-hand-man” of Saudi 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (“MbS”). MbS is a 

son of now-King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al 

Saud. In March 2013, MbS’s father was the Crown Prince, 

the second most powerful position in the Kingdom, and MbS

was named Head of the Private Office of the Crown Prince. 

In January 2015, MbS’s father became King, appointing 

MbS as Minister of Defense and Head of his Royal Court. 

In April 2015, King Salman named MbS Deputy Crown 

Prince. 

Binasaker was a close advisor to MbS. Binasaker was 

the General Supervisor of the Prince Salman Youth Center 

(PSYC). In 2011, MbS appointed Binasaker to be the 

Secretary General of the Mohammed bin Salman 

Foundation, a charitable organization that went by the 

acronym “MiSK.” The government’s expert at trial, Dr. 

Kristin Diwan, testified that these organizations were “very 

connected to royal power and trying to forward agendas of 

the particular royal or of the state.” Binasaker used an email 

address with the official domain name of His Royal 

Highness Prince Mohammed’s Private Office. In addition, 

and among other things, when Binasaker traveled with a 

Saudi delegation for meetings at Camp David, he submitted 

an A-2 visa for diplomatic travelers, describing himself as a 

“foreign official/employee.” 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 7

After the June 2014 tour at Twitter’s headquarters, 

Binasaker emailed Abouammo with a request to “verify” 

MbS’s Twitter account. Twitter’s verification service was 

generally reserved for public figures and placed a blue 

verification check box on their account to confirm that a 

particular Twitter account was actually associated with that 

person. Media Partnerships Managers were not directly 

involved in the verification process but would serve as 

liaisons between the verification team and the public figure. 

After additional verification requests, a MiSK employee 

contacted Abouammo “[r]egarding the arrangement between 

you and Mr. [Binasaker] for many things,” to report an 

account impersonating MbS. Abouammo was generally 

expected to address complaints from influential Twitter 

users in the region that imposters were using their accounts.

In December 2014, Abouammo met Binasaker at a 

Twitter meeting in London. At the meeting, Binasaker gave 

Abouammo a luxury Hublot watch. Abouammo later 

attempted to sell the watch online for $42,000. At the 

London meeting, Binasaker and Abouammo spoke about a 

widely followed Twitter account with the handle 

@mujtahidd. The @mujtahidd account was an “infamous 

and colorful” persona in Saudi Arabia that tweeted about 

alleged corruption and incompetence in the Saudi Kingdom 

and royal family.

After Abouammo returned from London, he received an 

email from Binasaker that read: “salam brother as we 

discussed in london for Mujtahid file.” Attached to this 

email was a dossier describing the @mujtahidd account as 

“established on July 2011 under an anonymous name with 

[the] aim of speaking out some confidential information and 

leaking some hidden facts about Saudi Arabia and royal 

family.” The document asserted that @mujtahidd violated 

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8 USA V. ABOUAMMO

Saudi law by slandering the royal family and igniting false 

rumors about them. 

Twitter records show that Abouammo used an internal 

Twitter tool called “Profile Viewer” to repeatedly access the 

@mujtahidd account, beginning shortly after he met 

Binasaker in London in December 2014 and continuing 

through February 2015. Profile Viewer allowed Abouammo 

to search for specific Twitter users by their usernames and 

view their confidential personal identifying information, 

including the users’ email addresses, phone numbers, and IP 

addresses. Twitter’s records show that on various occasions 

Abouammo accessed the email and phone information 

associated with the @mujtahidd account. In February 2015, 

Binasaker emailed Abouammo about another account, 

@HSANATT, which had been suspended for impersonating 

a Saudi government official. Twitter’s records show that 

Abouammo accessed confidential personal information of 

the @HSANATT user in February 2015.

During this period, Binasaker and Abouammo 

communicated using WhatsApp, an end-to-end encrypted 

messaging platform. The content of those messages was not 

recovered. But the government claimed that circumstantial 

evidence showed Abouammo used WhatsApp to forward the 

confidential information of dissident Saudi Twitter users to 

Binasaker. In a post-trial order, the district court concluded

that while “[t]here is no direct evidence that [Abouammo] 

conveyed the information he accessed to Binasaker,” 

“[t]here is a significant amount of circumstantial evidence.”

In February 2015, a month in which Abouammo had 

viewed @mujtahidd and @HSANATT in Profile Viewer, 

Binasaker wired $100,000 to a bank account in Lebanon that 

Abouammo recently opened under his father’s name. On a 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 9

visit to Lebanon later that month, Abouammo withdrew 

$15,000 from the account and transferred some of the money 

to his own Bank of America account. In March 2015, the 

day after speaking with Binasaker, Abouammo messaged 

Binasaker the following note: “proactive and reactively we 

will delete evil my brother.” Binasaker responded with a 

thumbs up emoji.

During sentencing in this case, the district court heard 

testimony from the sister of a man who worked as a 

humanitarian worker for the Red Cross in Saudi Arabia. The 

man used a Twitter account to tweet satire critical of the 

Saudi government. The witnesstestified that her brother was

detained in Saudi Arabia due to the Twitter account, held in 

solitary confinement, and tortured through electric shocks

and beatings. The man was hospitalized with life threatening 

injuries and has since disappeared.

B

Abouammo left Twitter in May 2015 and moved to 

Seattle, where he started a freelance social media 

consultancy. Through his new venture, Abouammo 

introduced Saudi contacts to Twitter employees, serving as 

an intermediary to follow up on issues such as verification 

requests. In July 2015, Binasaker wired another $100,000 to 

Abouammo’s father’s Lebanese bank account, sending

Abouammo a note saying he was “sorry for the delay in the 

transfer.” Binasaker sent another $100,000 wire transfer to 

Abouammo in January 2016.

On October 20, 2018, the New York Times published an 

article describing how advisers to MbS had mobilized 

against critics on Twitter. The article reported that Twitter 

was warned in late 2015 that Saudi Arabian operatives had 

groomed a Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah, to look up the 

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10 USA V. ABOUAMMO

confidential identifying information of certain Twitter 

accounts critical of the Saudi government. Alzabarah had 

repeatedly accessed the @mujtahidd account after meeting 

with Binasaker in May 2015. After Twitter questioned 

Alzabarah about his repeated access of the account, 

Alzabarah and his family fled to Saudi Arabia, where he 

secured employment with MiSK.

Notified that the New York Times would be publishing

this article, which would reveal the government’s ongoing 

investigation, the FBI flew two agents from the Bay Area to 

Seattle the night before the article’s release. The same day 

the article was published, the agents went to Abouammo’s

residence in Seattle to try to speak with him. They found 

Abouammo on the driveway of his home.

After they identified themselves as “FBI agents from the 

San Francisco office,” Abouammo immediately asked if 

they were there about the New York Times article. After 

briefly discussing the article, Abouammo said “something to 

the effect of he felt bad because he had introduced Ali 

Alzabarah to KSA officials,” specifically Binasaker. 

Moving into the house to continue the discussion, the FBI 

agents spoke with Abouammo for several hours. During the 

course of the interview, Abouammo told the agents that he 

presumed Binasaker was close to MbS, that he knew 

Binasaker was part of the King’s team, and that Binasaker 

worked for MiSK and PSYC, which were both entities that,

according to Abouammo, were owned or controlled by the 

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Abouammo informed the agents that he had met with 

Binasaker in London, Dubai, and Riyadh, and that Binasaker 

had gifted him a watch that was “plasticky and cheap and 

worth approximately $500.” Abouammo recalled that 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 11

Binasaker was interested in the @mujtahidd account and had 

repeatedly asked Abouammo to access it. Abouammo 

admitted he accessed the account but denied that he passed 

any private user information to Binasaker. Abouammo also 

described how Binasaker was unhappy when Abouammo 

decided to leave Twitter, telling the agents that one of the 

reasons he left the company was the “mounting pressure” 

from contacts in the Saudi government.

Abouammo told the agents that he continued to assist 

Binasaker after he left Twitter and was paid $100,000 for his 

services. When the agents asked Abouammo if there was 

documentation to support this claim, Abouammo said he had 

retained an invoice. Abouammo told the agents the invoice 

was on his computer, and he went upstairs to retrieve it while 

the agents waited on the first floor.

Several minutes after going upstairs, Abouammo 

emailed the agents an invoice that had nothing to do with 

Binasaker or MiSK. Nearly thirty minutes later, as the 

agents continued to wait downstairs, Abouammo sent a 

second email with an attachment purporting to be an invoice 

for work performed for MiSK, which showed $100,000 

billed for one year of social media consulting. The metadata 

of the two invoices showed that although the first invoice 

was created months before, the supposed MiSK invoice was 

created during the thirty-minute period that Abouammo was 

upstairs.

C

In November 2019, a Northern District of California 

grand jury returned an indictment against Abouammo for

one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government 

without prior notification to the Attorney General, in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 951, and one count of falsifying 

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12 USA V. ABOUAMMO

records in a federal investigation, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1519.2 In February 2020, the parties agreed to a tolling 

agreement to pursue a possible plea deal. Under the tolling 

agreement, the statute of limitations was extended to April 

7, 2020.

March 2020 marked a sudden halt in court proceedings 

due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The district court 

accordingly suspended grand jury operations. On March 31,

2020, the government asked the defense for another tolling 

agreement. The defense declined. As a result, on April 7,

2020, the government filed a superseding information 

adding fifteen counts of wire and honest services fraud, 18 

U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346, one count of conspiracy to commit 

wire and honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1349, and three 

counts of international money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1956. 

After grand jury proceedings resumed, the grand jury in July 

2020 returned a superseding indictment that contained the 

same charges as the April 2020 information.

The district court denied Abouammo’s motion to dismiss 

the document falsification charges on grounds of improper 

venue, and it likewise denied Abouammo’s motion to 

dismiss the wire fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering 

charges as untimely under the statute of limitations. After a 

two-week jury trial, Abouammo was convicted on six counts 

of the superseding indictment: acting as an agent of a foreign 

government, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest 

services fraud, wire and honest services fraud, two counts of 

international money laundering, and falsification of records 

in a federal investigation. The jury found Abouammo not 

guilty of five other counts of wire fraud and honest services 

2 The grand jury also indicted Alzabarah and Ahmad Almutairi, the 

managing director of a Saudi social media company.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 13

fraud. The district court denied Abouammo’s motion for 

judgment of acquittal and motion for a new trial.

Grouping all counts except the § 951 conviction, the 

district court determined that Abouammo’s advisory 

Sentencing Guidelines range was 70 to 87 months in prison. 

The district court sentenced Abouammo to a belowGuidelines sentence of 42 months in prison (42-month 

concurrent terms for each count), three years of supervised 

release, and forfeiture of $242,000.3

Abouammo timely appealed his convictions and 

sentence, although he does not challenge his conviction for 

conspiracy to commit wire fraud. We have jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We address Abouammo’s 

challenges to his convictions in the order he raises them.

II

Abouammo first argues that the evidence was 

insufficient to support his conviction for acting as an agent 

of a foreign government without prior notification to the 

Attorney General, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 951. 

We “review de novo the sufficiency of the evidence, 

including questions of statutory interpretation.” United 

States v. Grovo, 826 F.3d 1207, 1213 (9th Cir. 2016). “In 

doing so, we view the evidence in the light most favorable 

to the prosecution and ask whether any rational trier of fact 

could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond 

a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 1213–14; see also Jackson v. 

3 The district court determined there was no Guidelines provision for 

Abouammo’s § 951 conviction for acting as an unregistered agent of a 

foreign government or official. However, the court concluded that a 42-

month concurrent sentence for that conviction was independently 

warranted under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

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14 USA V. ABOUAMMO

Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). We “presume that the 

trier of fact resolved any conflicting inferences from 

historical facts in favor of the prosecution, and then 

determine whether the evidence, thus viewed, could have led 

any rational fact-finder to find the defendant guilty.” United 

States v. Brugnara, 856 F.3d 1198, 1207 (9th Cir. 2017)

(citation omitted).

We hold that sufficient evidence supports Abouammo’s 

§ 951 conviction.

A

Under 18 U.S.C. § 951(a), “[w]hoever, other than a 

diplomatic or consular officer or attaché, acts in the United 

States as an agent of a foreign government without prior 

notification to the Attorney General . . . shall be fined under 

this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” 

Under § 951(d), “the term ‘agent of a foreign government’ 

means an individual who agrees to operate within the United 

States subject to the direction or control of a foreign 

government or official.” Section 951 contains some 

exceptions that are not directly implicated here. See id.

§ 951(d)(1)–(4). An implementing regulation, 28 C.F.R. 

§ 73.1(b), defines “foreign government” to 

include[] any person or group of persons 

exercising sovereign de facto or de jure 

political jurisdiction over any country, other 

than the United States, or over any part of 

such country, and includes any subdivision of 

any such group or agency to which such 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 15

sovereign de facto or de jure authority or 

functions are directly or indirectly delegated.

Section 951 originates from the World War I-era 

Espionage Act of 1917. See United States v. Chaoqun, 107 

F.4th 715, 727 (7th Cir. 2024); United States v. Duran, 596 

F.3d 1283, 1294 & n.4 (11th Cir. 2010); United States v. 

Rafiekian, 991 F.3d 529, 538 & n.10 (4th Cir. 2021) 

(Rafiekian I). Reflecting the government’s “strong interest 

in identifying people acting at the behest of foreign 

governments within its borders,” Rafiekian I, 991 F.3d at 

538, the core objective of § 951 is to “serv[e] as a ‘catch-all 

statute that would cover all conduct taken on behalf of a 

foreign government.’” Id. at 544 (quoting Duran, 596 F.3d 

at 1294–95). Although we do not exhaustively address all 

of its particulars, § 951 has three essential elements: “(1) a 

person must act; (2) the action must be taken at the direction 

of or under the control of a foreign government [or official]; 

and (3) the person must fail to notify the Attorney General 

before taking such action.” Duran, 596 F.3d at 1291. 

In this case, there is no dispute over the first and third 

elements. The issue instead concerns the second: whether 

Abouammo acted “subject to the direction or control of a 

foreign government or official.” 18 U.S.C. § 951(d). 

Abouammo’s sole argument on appeal is that the evidence 

was insufficient to convict him under § 951 because 

Binasaker was not a foreign “official.” In Abouammo’s 

view, a foreign official must “hold[] public office or 

otherwise serve[] in an official position in the foreign 

government,” and Binasaker does not meet this test because 

he “lacked any official role or position in the Saudi 

government during the relevant period.” 

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16 USA V. ABOUAMMO

We conclude that it is unnecessary to resolve this issue

because an alternative theory—that Abouammo acted at the 

behest of a foreign government—sufficiently supports the 

jury’s verdict. Regardless, a rational jury could conclude 

that Binasaker was a foreign “official” even under 

Abouammo’s narrow construction of that term.

B

We begin with why we need not resolve Abouammo’s 

argument about the meaning of foreign “official.” The 

reason is that under 18 U.S.C. § 951(d), “the term ‘agent of 

a foreign government’ means an individual who agrees to 

operate within the United States subject to the direction or 

control of a foreign government or official.” (Emphasis 

added). This disjunctive provision refers to one who agrees 

to act as an agent of either a foreign government or a foreign 

official. Here, regardless of Binasaker’s exact role in Saudi 

Arabia, sufficient, if not overwhelming, evidence shows that 

Abouammo knowingly agreed to act under the direction and 

control of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1

As we recounted above, Binasaker was a close advisor 

and “right-hand man” to now-Crown Prince Mohammed bin 

Salman (MbS), himself a high-ranking official in the Saudi 

government during the relevant time. The trial testimony 

showed that as MbS grew in power in Saudi Arabia, 

Binasaker’s influence grew as well. Indeed, the evidence

demonstrated that Binasaker had extensive involvement 

with the Saudi royal family and government.

The government provided expert testimony that in Saudi 

Arabia, “power stems from proximity to rule,” and that the 

royal family “hold their own courts, basically, of people who 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 17

work for them as well within the courts.” The expert further 

testified that MbS “has been assuming a lot more of the dayto-day rule of the kingdom and initiatives of the 

government” and is considered the “de facto leader” of the 

country. Binasaker was “very close” to MbS, “linked into” 

the Crown Prince’s “private personal life and finances and, 

also, his broader agenda.” The government’s expert also 

testified that Binasaker’s actions reflected the agenda and 

objectives of the office of MbS, and that as the “main aid[e] 

to the second most powerful man in the kingdom,” 

Binasaker’s actions reflected the power of the Crown Prince. 

Binasaker’s positions in MiSK and PSYC were tied to 

the ambitions and policies of the state. MiSK was “a royalfounded foundation” that was MbS’s “personal foundation.” 

It was “very high profile in the administration.” Binasaker 

“was the secretary general of” MiSK, which was at the 

forefront “of the agenda that [Mohammed] bin Salman was 

pursuing, particularly in his political strategies.” The 

government’s expert testified that in Saudi Arabia, these 

types of foundations were “very connected to royal power 

and trying to forward agendas of the particular royal or of 

the state.” MiSK would be connected to the royal 

governmental power of Saudi Arabia “by its very name” 

because “[i]t’s connected to the current crown prince” and 

“[e]veryone would know that.” 

The government’s expert further explained that MiSK

took on quasi-governmental functions. MiSK “works very 

closely with other ministries,” and the “ruling family would 

often bring MiSK on their main diplomatic visits abroad.” 

MiSK’s connection with MbS meant that it was recognized 

as a means of getting closer to the royal family, particularly 

because this “kind of proximity is very important in Saudi 

Arabia, proximity to power.” 

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Abouammo clearly understood that Binasaker was 

representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Referencing 

communications with Binasaker, Abouammo told 

colleagues at Twitter that he had “built a strong relationship 

with the team of HRH [(His Royal Highness)] Crown Prince 

Salman bin Abdelaziz Al Saud,” describing himself as 

“working with His Majesty’s team” on Twitter-related 

matters. On the same day that he had multiple phone calls 

with Binasaker, Abouammo described himself as having 

“spoke[n] with a close person with King Salman.” Years 

later, when FBI agents approached Abouammo at his home 

in Seattle, Abouammo explained how he had introduced 

fellow Twitter employee Alzabarah (the subject of the New 

York Times article) to Binasaker, whom Abouammo

identified to the FBI agents as a Saudi government official. 

According to one of the agents, Abouammo “specifically 

mentioned Mr. Binasaker” when explaining that he left

Twitter in part because of the “mounting pressure from 

contacts within the KSA government.”

Finally, the government demonstrated at trial that 

Abouammo had specific dealings with Binasaker concerning 

the Twitter accounts @mujtahidd and @HSANATT, both of 

which were critical of the Saudi government and royal 

family. The evidence readily permitted the conclusion that 

the purpose of these interactions was to assist the Kingdom 

of Saudi Arabia in silencing dissident voices. The nature of 

the communications between Abouammo and Binasaker—

concerning information of evident importance to the state—

underscores that Abouammo, through Binasaker, was acting 

at the direction and control of Saudi Arabia. Whether 

Binasaker was a formal government “official,” an éminence 

grise, or something else, he was acting for the Kingdom, and 

Abouammo knew this.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 19

2

Abouammo claims there is a problem with this theory: it 

was never charged or tried. In Abouammo’s view, the full 

extent of the theory advanced by the government was that 

Abouammo acted subject to the direction and control of 

Binasaker as a foreign “official.” Expanding this to 

encompass Abouammo acting subject to the Saudi 

government itself, Abouammo contends, would amount to a 

constructive amendment of the indictment and a “fatal 

variance” between the evidence presented and the crime 

charged. See United States v. Davis, 854 F.3d 601, 603 (9th 

Cir. 2017); United States v. Ward, 747 F.3d 1184, 1189 (9th 

Cir. 2014).

We are not persuaded. Count I of the superseding 

indictment alleged that Abouammo provided Binasaker “and 

others related to, and working for, the government of KSA 

and the Saudi Royal Family with nonpublic information held 

in the accounts of Twitter users.” These accounts were

“posting information critical of, or embarrassing to, the 

Saudi Royal Family and government of KSA.” The 

indictment thus charged Abouammo under 18 U.S.C. § 951 

as having “knowingly, without notifying the Attorney 

General as required by law, act[ing] as an agent of a foreign 

government, to wit, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi 

Arabia and the Saudi Royal Family.”

Although Abouammo emphasizes the number of times 

Binasaker is referenced in the superseding indictment as 

“Foreign Official-1,” the indictment also alleged that 

Foreign Official-1 “work[ed] for . . . the government of KSA 

and the Saudi Royal Family.” That the government alleged 

and argued that Binasaker was a foreign “official” does not 

mean the government exclusively pursued a foreign 

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20 USA V. ABOUAMMO

“official” theory at the expense of the broader theory that 

Binasaker acted for the Saudi government. The theories and 

supporting evidence are not mutually exclusive, especially 

considering that Abouammo could only act at the direction 

and control of the KSA government through a Saudi contact. 

The jury instructions—which Abouammo does not 

challenge—reflect this reality by offering the jury both 

theories. The jury was instructed, for example, that “[t]o 

find the defendant guilty of this offense, you must find the 

defendant knew that he was acting as an agent of a foreign

government or an official of the KSA and knew that he had 

not provided prior notification to the Attorney General.”

We acknowledge Abouammo’s argument that in 

denying his motion for judgment of acquittal, the district 

court appears to have focused on whether the government 

sufficiently proved that Binasaker was a foreign “official.” 

But the court’s ruling describing Binasaker as exercising “de 

facto authority” over “some portion of the KSA’s sovereign 

power” can also be read as referencing the government’s 

more general theory that Binasaker was acting on behalf of 

the Saudi government, which through Binasaker placed 

Abouammo under its direction and control. Regardless, our 

review of the sufficiency of the evidence is de novo. Grovo, 

826 F.3d at 1213. After that review, we conclude that a 

reasonable juror could find that Abouammo, through 

Binasaker, acted at the direction and control of the KSA and 

Saudi royal family, and that the charging documents

sufficiently encompassed this theory.

C

Even if we believed the government limited itself to a 

foreign “official” theory, we would still hold that sufficient 

evidence supports Abouammo’s § 951 conviction.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 21

The foreign “official” language was added to § 951 in a 

1984 joint appropriations resolution. See Pub. L. No. 98-

473, Title II, § 1209, 98 Stat. 1837, 2164 (1984). Forty years 

later, effectively no case law has seriously examined it. We 

have only considered a similar sufficiency of the evidence 

challenge to a § 951 conviction in one other case, United 

States v. Chung, 659 F.3d 815 (9th Cir. 2011). 

In Chung, we affirmed a conviction under § 951 based 

on evidence that the defendant acted “at the direction or 

control of Chinese officials.” Id. at 823. Chung explained 

that to sustain the defendant’s § 951 conviction, the 

government had to “establish that a Chinese official directed 

or controlled Defendant’s actions during the limitations 

period.” Id. We found that sufficient evidence supported 

this element, as the defendant responded to the directions of 

two handlers who were “Chinese official[s].” Id. at 824. 

One of the handlers was “a senior official with the China 

Aviation Industry Corporation, a Chinese government 

ministry.” Id. at 819. The other was an “engineer who 

worked for a naval defense contractor,” id., though the 

defendant was passed on to him by the senior official. Id. at 

824. Chung did not attempt to construe the term foreign 

“official” to a meaningful extent, but it appears to have 

regarded both the senior ministry member and the contractor 

as “Chinese officials.” Id. 

Abouammo argues that Binasaker was not a foreign 

“official” because such a person must hold a formal public 

office or serve in an official position in the foreign 

government. But even if we had to decide the foreign 

“official” question, we would not be required to delve deeply 

into the issue. That is because even if one accepts

Abouammo’s stricter interpretation of foreign “official” in 

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22 USA V. ABOUAMMO

§ 951(d), the jury had ample evidence from which to 

conclude that Binasaker was such an official. 

Most striking is Binasaker’s diplomatic visa. In May 

2015, and within the rough time period in which Binasaker 

was interfacing with Abouammo, Binasaker applied for an 

A-2 visa to accompany the King of Saudi Arabia on a visit 

to Camp David. An A-2 visa is “reserved for diplomatic and 

official travelers” coming to perform temporary work in the 

United States on behalf of a foreign government.

The visa application identified Binasaker as a “foreign 

official/employee,” listed his primary occupation as 

“government,” and identified his employer as “Royal 

Court.” A State Department notation on the application 

likewise listed the purpose of Binasaker’s visit as “Official 

Travel.” A reasonable jury could conclude that Binasaker 

was a foreign “official” under § 951(d) considering that

Binasaker and his government described Binasaker on an 

official document in a way that, on its face, brings Binasaker

within the plain language of § 951(d). That the State 

Department regarded him similarly only adds to the strength 

of that inference.

Abouammo attempts to downplay the A-2 visa, claiming 

it was cursory and incomplete and that it was prepared too 

late in the course of Binasaker’s relationship with 

Abouammo to have evidentiary relevance. But to the extent 

conflicting inferences could be drawn from the visa and the 

circumstances surrounding it, the jury could have resolved 

those inferences in favor of the government. See Jackson, 

443 U.S. at 326. In addition, the jury could have regarded 

the description of Binasaker on the A-2 visa as indicative of 

his role, given the rest of the evidence presented at trial. That

evidence included, among other things, Binasaker’s use of 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 23

an email address with the official domain name of His Royal 

Highness Prince Mohammed’s Private Office, and 

Abouammo’s own characterization of Binasaker as a KSA 

official in his Seattle meeting with the FBI.

We have no occasion to conduct a full examination of 

the term “official” in 18 U.S.C. § 951(d) or to endorse 

Abouammo’s narrower definition. We hold simply that even 

under that narrower definition, a reasonable juror could find 

that Binasaker was a foreign “official.” 

For all these reasons, sufficient evidence supported 

Abouammo’s § 951 conviction.

III

Abouammo next challenges his convictions for money 

laundering and wire fraud as barred by the statute of 

limitations. Reviewing de novo, see United States v. Orrock, 

23 F.4th 1203, 1206 (9th Cir. 2022), we hold that these 

charges were timely.

A

Abouammo’s statute of limitations argument is rooted in 

the peculiarities of timing associated with his money 

laundering and wire fraud charges. The initial indictment, 

returned in November 2019, charged Abouammo with acting 

as an agent of a foreign government without prior 

notification to the Attorney General and with falsifying 

records in a federal investigation. It did not include charges 

for money laundering or wire fraud. Due to ongoing plea 

discussions, the parties agreed to toll the five-year statute of 

limitations, see 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a), until April 7, 2020. 

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, making the grand jury 

unavailable. The government tried to secure an agreement 

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24 USA V. ABOUAMMO

to further extend the limitations period, but Abouammo 

refused. 

On April 7, 2020, the day the limitations period was set 

to expire per the parties’ agreement, the government filed a 

superseding information charging Abouammo with, inter 

alia, money laundering and wire fraud. Abouammo did not 

consent to a waiver of the indictment requirement. See FED.

R. CRIM. P. 7(b) (“An offense punishable by imprisonment 

for more than one year may be prosecuted by information if 

the defendant—in open court and after being advised of the 

nature of the charge and of the defendant’s rights—waives 

prosecution by indictment.”). 

On July 28, 2020, the government dismissed the 

information. That same day, and with COVID restrictions 

relaxed, the grand jury returned the superseding indictment

containing the new money laundering and wire fraud 

charges. The charges in the superseding indictment were the 

same as those in the information. The question presented is 

whether the filing of the information on April 7, 2020, prior 

to the expiration of the statute of limitations, followed by the 

filing of a superseding indictment within six months of the

dismissal of that information, made these charges timely.

B

Abouammo’s argument implicates two statutory 

provisions, 18 U.S.C. § 3282 and 18 U.S.C. § 3288. Section 

3282(a), the general statute of limitations provision, 

provides that “[e]xcept as otherwise expressly provided by 

law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any 

offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the 

information is instituted within five years next after such 

offense has been committed.” 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a)

(emphasis added). 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 25

Abouammo argues that the term “instituted” requires 

that the information be sufficient to sustain a prosecution. 

Because a felony cannot be prosecuted by information unless 

the defendant waives prosecution by indictment, see FED. R.

CRIM. P. 7(b), Abouammo concludes that an information is 

not “instituted” unless the defendant waives his right to be 

indicted by a grand jury.

The government disagrees, arguing that for statute of 

limitations purposes, the plain meaning of “institute” merely 

requires that the information be filed. The circuits that have 

considered the question agree with the government. See 

United States v. Briscoe, 101 F.4th 282, 292–93 (4th Cir. 

2024); United States v. Burdix-Dana, 149 F.3d 741, 742–43

(7th Cir. 1998). We find it unnecessary to resolve the 

meaning of “institute” in 18 U.S.C. § 3282 because the 

second provision that we mentioned, 18 U.S.C. § 3288, 

confirms there is no statute of limitations problem. 

Section 3288 provides: 

Whenever an indictment or information 

charging a felony is dismissed for any reason 

after the period prescribed by the applicable 

statute of limitations has expired, a new 

indictment may be returned in the appropriate 

jurisdiction within six calendar months of the 

date of the dismissal of the indictment or 

information, . . . which new indictment shall 

not be barred by any statute of limitations. 

This section does not permit the filing of a 

new indictment or information where the 

reason for the dismissal was the failure to file 

the indictment or information within the 

period prescribed by the applicable statute of 

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26 USA V. ABOUAMMO

limitations, or some other reason that would 

bar a new prosecution.

18 U.S.C. § 3288. 

With one exception not applicable here, § 3288 

categorically excludes from “any statute of limitations” bar 

a “new indictment . . . returned in the appropriate 

jurisdiction within six calendar months” of the dismissal of 

an “information charging a felony.” Id. Here, the 

superseding information was filed on April 7, 2020, within 

the statute of limitations. In that circumstance, a valid 

indictment under § 3288 is not subject to the five-year 

limitations period, because § 3282’s proviso—“[e]xcept as 

otherwise expressly provided by law”—expressly 

contemplates that other provisions may govern in its stead. 

18 U.S.C. § 3282(a). Section 3288 is such a provision.

Consistent with the plain language of § 3288, the 

superseding indictment in this case was returned within six 

months of the dismissal of the April 7, 2020 information. 

The superseding indictment was therefore timely.

Abouammo nevertheless contends that the “information 

charging a felony” referred to in § 3288 has the same 

meaning he assigns to “information” in § 3282—that is, it 

requires an “instituted” information accompanied by a 

waiver of indictment. The immediate difficulty that 

Abouammo confronts, however, is that his position finds no 

support in the statutory text. Section 3288 applies

“[w]henever an indictment or information charging a felony 

is dismissed for any reason after the period prescribed by the 

applicable statute of limitations has expired.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3288. Nothing in this language requires that the 

information be “instituted” or otherwise accompanied by a 

waiver of indictment. 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 27

But perhaps more problematically, Abouammo’s 

position is significantly undercut by the history of this 

provision. As Abouammo concedes, Congress specifically 

removed language requiring a waiver of indictment from 

§ 3288. The statute previously referred to “an indictment or 

information filed after the defendant waives in open court 

prosecution by indictment.” See United States v. Macklin, 

535 F.2d 191, 192 n.2 (2d Cir. 1976) (providing the original 

text) (emphasis added). But in 1988, Congress removed the 

language “filed after the defendant waives in open court 

prosecution by indictment”—the very limitation Abouammo 

wishes to read back into the statute—to give us the present 

language of “an indictment or information charging a 

felony . . . .” See Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Pub. L. No. 

100-690, Title VII, § 7081(a), 102 Stat. 4181, 4407.4

4 To help visualize the changes, we include here the relevant text of the 

provision showing the stricken language, with the language added in the 

1988 amendment in italics: 

Whenever an indictment is dismissed for any error, 

defect, or irregularity with respect to the grand jury, or 

an indictment or information filed after the defendant 

waives in open court prosecution by indictment is 

found otherwise defective or insufficient for any 

cause, Whenever an indictment or information 

charging a felony is dismissed for any reason after the 

period prescribed by the applicable statute of 

limitations has expired, a new indictment may be 

returned in the appropriate jurisdiction within six 

calendar months of the date of the dismissal of the 

indictment or information . . . which new indictment 

shall not be barred by any statute of limitations. This 

section does not permit the filing of a new indictment 

or information where the reason for the dismissal was 

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28 USA V. ABOUAMMO

Abouammo responds that this 1988 amendment was 

merely a “technical rewriting” of the statute that was not 

meant to have substantive effect. But “[w]hen Congress acts 

to amend a statute, we presume it intends its amendment to 

have real and substantial effect.” United States v. Pepe, 895 

F.3d 679, 686 (9th Cir. 2018) (quoting Pierce Cty. v. Guillen, 

537 U.S. 129, 145 (2003)). It is difficult to describe the 

amendments here as merely technical. And when 

Abouammo’s argument already lacks a textual foundation in 

§ 3288, we are reluctant to interpret that provision to include 

a requirement that Congress specifically removed. We 

therefore hold that when the government secured a 

superseding indictment within six months of the dismissal of 

the April 7, 2020 information, which was filed within the 

limitations period, the government complied with 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3288, so that the superseding indictment was timely.

Our conclusion finds support in the Seventh Circuit’s 

decision in United States v. Burdix-Dana, 149 F.3d 741 (7th 

Cir. 1998). In that case, with the statute of limitations set to 

expire on or about February 24, 1997, the government filed 

an information on February 20, 1997, and the grand jury then 

returned an indictment on March 4, 1997. Id. at 742. The 

Seventh Circuit first held that the information was properly

“instituted” under § 3282, because although the government 

cannot proceed with a felony prosecution until it secures 

either an indictment or waiver of indictment, “[w]e do not 

see how this rule affects the statute governing the limitation 

period.” Id. at 742–43. The court then held that the 

the failure to file the indictment or information within 

the period prescribed by the applicable statute of 

limitations, or some other reason that would bar a new 

prosecution.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 29

government had validly proceeded with its prosecution 

because the indictment was timely under § 3288, which 

“allows the government to file an indictment after the 

limitations period has run.” Id. at 743; see also United States 

v. Rothenberg, 554 F. Supp. 3d 1039, 1045 (N.D. Cal. 2021)

(explaining how the statutory changes to § 3288 support 

finding a superseding indictment timely).

Abouammo suggests that under our reading of § 3288, 

the government could file a placeholder information and 

then control the limitations period by securing an indictment 

within six months of dismissing the information. But as the 

district court recognized, other safeguards will continue to 

protect criminal defendants from that kind of over-extension. 

That is because (1) an information must still be sufficiently 

specific, FED. R. CRIM. P. 7(c); (2) it presumptively entitles 

the defendant to a prompt preliminary hearing, FED.R.CRIM.

P. 5.1; and (3) the defendant can move to dismiss the 

information, FED. R. CRIM P. 12(b)(3)(A)–(B). As the 

Seventh Circuit pointed out, the situation of a prosecutor 

filing an information and then waiting indefinitely to obtain

an indictment “would only arise if the defendant charged in 

the information rests on her rights and does not move for 

dismissal of the information herself.” Burdix-Dana, 149 

F.3d at 743. And the government acknowledges that at some 

point, substantial delay in obtaining an indictment under 

§ 3288 could present speedy trial or due process concerns.

No such concerns are present in this case, as there is no 

evidence of government abuse or bad faith. The government 

could not return to the grand jury in April 2020 because 

grand jury proceedings were suspended as a result of the 

COVID-19 pandemic. When those restrictions were lifted, 

the government promptly secured a superseding indictment. 

Any concern with the government “sitting” on an 

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30 USA V. ABOUAMMO

information is simply not presented on these facts. We thus 

hold that Abouammo’s money laundering and wire fraud 

counts were timely charged.

IV

Abouammo next argues that his conviction for 

falsification of records with intent to obstruct a federal 

investigation, 18 U.S.C. § 1519, should be dismissed due to 

improper venue. Reviewing de novo, United States v. 

Lozoya, 982 F.3d 648, 650 (9th Cir. 2020) (en banc), we hold 

that venue on Abouammo’s § 1519 charge was proper in the

Northern District of California, where the allegedly 

obstructed federal investigation was taking place. We 

therefore affirm Abouammo’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1519.

A

Section 1519 provides:

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, 

mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or 

makes a false entry in any record, document, 

or tangible object with the intent to impede, 

obstruct, or influence the investigation or 

proper administration of any matter within 

the jurisdiction of any department or agency 

of the United States or any case filed under 

title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of 

any such matter or case, shall be fined under 

this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, 

or both. 

18 U.S.C. § 1519. To convict Abouammo under this 

provision, the government was required to show that 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 31

Abouammo “(1) knowingly committed one of the 

enumerated acts in the statute, such as destroying or 

concealing; (2) towards any record, document, or tangible 

object; (3) with the intent to obstruct an actual or 

contemplated investigation by the United States of a matter 

within its jurisdiction.” United States v. Singh, 979 F.3d 

697, 715 (9th Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. Katakis, 

800 F.3d 1017, 1023 (9th Cir. 2015)).

Abouammo’s § 1519 charge was based on the fake 

invoice for social media consulting services that he created 

during his October 2018 interview with the FBI at his home 

in Seattle. As we described above, the federal investigators 

who came to Abouammo’s residence identified themselves 

as “FBI agents from the San Francisco office.” When they 

asked Abouammo if he had documentation supporting his 

consulting work for Binasaker, Abouammo went upstairs 

and created a falsified invoice that he then emailed to the 

agents who were in his home. The district court concluded 

that venue on the § 1519 charge was proper in the Northern 

District of California because “the crime is tied to the 

potentially adverse effect upon a specific (pending or 

contemplated) proceeding, transaction, etc., and venue may 

properly be based on the location of that effect.”

The question before us is whether venue for a charge 

under 18 U.S.C. § 1519 is limited to the district in which the 

false document was prepared, or whether venue can also lie 

in the district in which the obstructed federal investigation 

was taking place. It appears that no circuit has yet to address 

this question in the context of § 1519.

B

The Constitution mandates that “[t]he Trial of all 

Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the said Crimes 

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32 USA V. ABOUAMMO

have been committed.” Art. III, § 2, cl. 3; see also Smith v. 

United States, 599 U.S. 236, 242–43 (2023). Echoing this 

requirement, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 

provide that “[u]nless a statute or these rules permit 

otherwise, the government must prosecute an offense in a 

district where the offense was committed.” FED. R. CRIM. P.

18. But venue for a criminal prosecution may be available 

in more than one district. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a), 

“[e]xcept as otherwise expressly provided by enactment of 

Congress, any offense against the United States begun in one 

district and completed in another, or committed in more than 

one district, may be inquired of and prosecuted in any district 

in which such offense was begun, continued, or completed.” 

Section 1519 lacks an express venue provision. In that 

situation, venue “must be determined from the nature of the 

crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting 

it.” United States v. Fortenberry, 89 F.4th 702, 705 (9th Cir. 

2023) (quoting United States v. Anderson, 328 U.S. 699, 703 

(1946)). That is, “we ‘must initially identify the conduct 

constituting the offense (the nature of the crime) and then 

discern the location of the commission of the criminal acts.’” 

United States v. Lukashov, 694 F.3d 1107, 1120 (9th Cir. 

2012) (quoting United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 

275, 279 (1999)). “To determine the ‘nature of the crime,’

we look to the ‘essential conduct elements’ of the offense.” 

Id. (quoting United States v. Pace, 314 F.3d 344, 349 (9th 

Cir. 2002)). The “essential conduct elements” of an offense 

are to be distinguished from its “circumstance elements.” 

Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 705 (quoting Rodriguez-Moreno, 

526 U.S. at 280 n.4). The latter are elements that are 

“necessary for a conviction but not a factor in deciding the 

location of the offense for venue purposes.” Id. at 706.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 33

Abouammo does not dispute that for some criminal 

offenses, the place where the effects of the crime are directed 

or sustained can be an appropriate venue for prosecution, 

even if the acts that would produce those effects took place 

in a different district. As we have recognized, “there 

certainly are crimes that may be prosecuted where their 

effects are felt.” Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 711. Instead, 

Abouammo’s contention is that 18 U.S.C. § 1519 is not 

drafted in a way that treats the obstructed federal 

investigation as an essential element of the offense for 

purposes of venue. Two of our precedents provide the core

framework for analyzing whether § 1519 should be read as 

allowing “effects-based” venue.

The first is United States v. Angotti, 105 F.3d 539 (9th 

Cir. 1997). The defendant, Angotti, submitted false loan 

documents to a mortgage company (“an innocent middle 

agent”), which sent the materials to a bank branch in the 

Northern District of California, which then forwarded the

materials for approval to the bank’s headquarters in the 

Central District of California. Id. at 541. Angotti was

charged in the Central District with violating 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1014, which criminalizes “‘knowingly making any false 

statement . . . for the purpose of influencing . . . the action’ 

of a federally insured institution.” Id. at 542 (quoting 18 

U.S.C. § 1014). 

We held that venue was proper in the Central District. 

Id. We acknowledged that “some of the criminal conduct 

occurred in the Northern District, where the statements were 

submitted.” Id. But because “Angotti was charged with 

making false statements for the purpose of influencing the 

actions of bank officials” located in the Central District, 

venue was proper in that district, “where the communication 

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34 USA V. ABOUAMMO

reached the audience whom it was intended to influence.” 

Id. 

We recognized in Angotti that the statute of conviction, 

18 U.S.C. § 1014, criminalized conduct that did not depend 

on any actual effects occurring in the Central District. 

“There is no question,” we explained, “that a crime was 

committed once Angotti’s statements reached the bank 

office in the Northern District,” and that “the statements did 

not have to reach their intended destination in order to 

constitute a crime.” Id. at 543. For purposes of criminal 

liability, it was sufficient that “Angotti’s statement was 

made for the purpose of influencing the bank official who 

had the power to approve his loan.” Id.

But venue in the Central District was appropriate 

because under 18 U.S.C. § 3237, “the crime of making a 

false statement is a continuing offense that may be 

prosecuted in the district where the false statement is 

ultimately received for final decisionmaking.” Angotti, 105 

F.3d at 542. We reasoned that “the act of making a 

communication continues until the communication is 

received by the person or persons whom it is intended to 

affect or influence.” Id. at 543. Therefore, on the facts 

before us, Angotti’s “act of ‘making’ the false statements 

continued until the statements were received by the person 

whom they were ultimately intended to influence.” Id.; see 

also id. (noting that “the documents did reach the Central 

District”).

The second key precedent is United States v. 

Fortenberry, 89 F.4th 702 (9th Cir. 2023). That case

concerned the conviction of former Nebraska congressman 

Jeffrey Fortenberry for making false statements to FBI 

agents investigating illegal campaign contributions by a 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 35

foreign national. Id. at 704–05. Fortenberry made these 

false statements during interviews in Nebraska and 

Washington, D.C. to agents from the FBI’s Los Angeles 

office, from which the government was running its 

investigation. Id. at 704. 

Fortenberry was charged in the Central District of 

California with violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Id. at 704–05. 

That statute imposes criminal liability on anyone who, “in 

any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, 

legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the 

United States, knowingly and willfully—(1) falsifies, 

conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a 

material fact; [or] (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, 

or fraudulent statement or representation . . . .” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1001. Upon his conviction, Fortenberry argued on appeal 

that venue in the Central District was improper. Id. at 705. 

We agreed with Fortenberry. We held “that an effectsbased test for venue of a Section 1001 offense has no support 

in the Constitution, the text of the statute, or historical 

practice.” Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 704. Instead, “[b]ecause 

a Section 1001 offense is complete at the time the false 

statement is uttered, and because no actual effect on federal 

authorities is necessary to sustain a conviction, the location 

of the crime must be understood to be the place where the 

defendant makes the statement.” Id. at 712. We reached this 

conclusion after identifying “the essential conduct of a 

Section 1001 offense to be the making of a false statement.” 

Id. at 706. 

The government in Fortenberry pointed to the statute’s 

requirement that the false statement be material. On this 

basis, it urged us to permit effects-based venue on the theory 

that materiality “depends on how a listener would perceive 

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36 USA V. ABOUAMMO

the utterance, wherever the listener might be located.” Id. at

706. We rejected this argument. We explained that 

“[m]ateriality is not conduct because it does not require 

anything to actually happen.” Id. at 707. Because the only 

essential conduct was making the false statement, the 

“offense is complete when the statement is made.” Id. It 

was significant, in our view, that a conviction under § 1001

did “not depend on subsequent events or circumstances, or 

whether the recipient of the false statement was in fact 

affected by it in any way.” Id.

In reaching our result in Fortenberry, we found our prior 

decision in Angotti “readily distinguishable.” Id. at 710. As 

we discussed above, the statute in Angotti, 18 U.S.C. § 1014, 

criminalized a false statement made “for the purpose of 

influencing . . . the action” of a federally insured institution. 

Angotti, 105 F.3d at 542. Fortenberry explained that this 

statute differed from § 1001 because § 1014 “expressly 

contemplates the effect of influencing the action of a 

financial institution.” Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 710. The 

statute of conviction in Fortenberry, by contrast, 

contemplated no similar effect as part of its essential 

conduct. Instead, under § 1001, “[t]o determine whether a 

statement is misleading in a material way, we probe the 

‘intrinsic capabilities of the statement itself, rather than the 

possibility of the actual attainment of its end as measured by 

collateral circumstances.’” Id. (quoting United States v. 

Serv. Deli Inc., 151 F.3d 938, 941 (9th Cir. 1998)).

C

We now return to Abouammo’s statute of conviction, 18 

U.S.C. § 1519. That provision is analogous to the statute of 

conviction in Angotti, and it differs from the statute of 

conviction in Fortenberry. Angotti governs. Precedent thus

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 37

leads us to conclude that venue over Abouammo’s § 1519

charge was proper in the Northern District of California.

Abouammo’s statute of conviction required him to have 

falsified a record “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or 

influence the investigation or proper administration of any 

matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency 

of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in 

relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case.” 18 

U.S.C. § 1519 (emphasis added). This language is 

analogous to the language in 18 U.S.C. § 1014, the statute of 

conviction in Angotti, which punishes “‘knowingly mak[ing]

any false statement . . . for the purpose of influencing . . . the 

action’ of a federally insured institution.” 105 F.3d at 542 

(quoting 18 U.S.C. § 1014) (emphasis added). 

Like the provision at issue in Angotti, § 1519 “expressly 

contemplates the effect of influencing the action” of another. 

Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 710 (emphasis added). In Angotti, 

the entity acted upon was a federally insured financial 

institution. Here, it is “an actual or contemplated 

investigation by the United States of a matter within its 

jurisdiction.” Singh, 979 F.3d at 715 (quoting Katakis, 800 

F.3d at 1023). But the wording and structure of the 

provisions are effectively the same. And the express 

connection between the actus reus and its contemplated 

effect on another (financial institution or federal 

investigation) is patent.

In both instances, therefore, it is proper to conclude that 

the contemplated effects are part of the “essential conduct” 

of the offense for venue purposes because the statutes 

expressly define the conduct in those terms. See 

Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 706. Fortenberry thus supports the 

contention that, where the statute’s language expressly 

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38 USA V. ABOUAMMO

contemplates a defendant falsifying a document with intent 

to impede an investigation, venue can be proper in either the 

district where the wrongful conduct was initiated—where 

the false record was created—or the district of the expressly 

contemplated effect—where the investigation it was 

intended to stymie is ongoing or contemplated. See Singh, 

979 F.3d at 715.

The statute in Fortenberry was different. In

criminalizing materially false statements, Fortenberry, 89 

F.4th at 705 (citing 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)), the statutory

language did not “expressly contemplate[] the effect of 

influencing the action” of another, and so did not on that 

basis permit an effects-based test for venue purposes. Id. at 

710; see also id. (“No such language is used in Section 

1001.”). Fortenberry aligned itself with our prior decision 

in United States v. Marsh, 144 F.3d 1229 (9th Cir. 1998), 

which involved statutory language similar to that in 

Fortenberry. See Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 710–11 

(describing Marsh as “involving [a] conceptually similar 

statute[]”).5 

Our precedents thus divide into two camps. The first 

involves statutes that “expressly contemplate[] the effect of 

influencing the action.” Id. at 710. These provisions use 

specific statutory language that explicitly connects the 

wrongful statement to the thing to be affected—using 

5 Marsh concerned 26 U.S.C. § 7212, which provides: “Whoever 

corruptly or by force or threats of force (including any threatening letter 

or communication) endeavors to intimidate or impede any officer or 

employee of the United States acting in an official capacity under this 

title, or in any other way corruptly or by force or threats of force 

(including any threatening letter or communication) obstructs or 

impedes, or endeavors to obstruct or impede, the due administration of 

this title, shall” be punished. See Marsh, 144 F.3d at 1234, 1242.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 39

language such as “for the purpose of influencing” an entity. 

This was Angotti. See Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 710–11 

(distinguishing Angotti). These types of statutes, through 

language like “for the purpose of,” expressly contemplate 

effects-based venue. The second camp involves statutes that 

lack this kind of express statutory language, as in 

Fortenberry and Marsh. See id. at 710–11.

As we have explained, the statute here contains express 

language analogous to that in Angotti. Angotti—and 

Fortenberry’s interpretation of Angotti—thus require the 

conclusion that 18 U.S.C. § 1519 be read as permitting 

venue in the location where the effects of the criminal 

wrongdoing can be felt. Any other conclusion would ignore 

our binding precedent in Angotti.

Having considered “the conduct constituting the 

offense”—and having concluded that § 1519 permits 

effects-based venue in the location where the obstructed 

investigation was taking place—we next “discern the 

location of the commission of the criminal acts.” Lukashov, 

694 F.3d at 1120 (quoting Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. at

279). In Angotti, we concluded that § 1014 was a continuing 

offense, see 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a), and that the offense of 

making a false loan document continued “until the 

statements were received by the person whom they were 

ultimately intended to influence,” who was located in the 

Central District of California. Angotti, 105 F.3d at 543.

That same analysis applies here. Abouammo’s act of 

making a false document “with the intent to impede, 

obstruct, or influence” a federal investigation, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1519, continued until the document was “received by the 

person or persons whom it [was] intended to affect or 

influence.” Angotti, 105 F.3d at 543. And here it was 

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40 USA V. ABOUAMMO

received by FBI agents working out of the FBI’s San 

Francisco office. In these circumstances, the offense was 

continued or completed in the Northern District, making 

venue proper there. 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a); see also Lukashov, 

694 F.3d at 1211 (explaining that “a continuing offense 

‘does not terminate merely because all the elements are 

met,’” but is instead “committed ‘over the whole area 

through which force propelled by an offender operates’”) 

(first quoting United States v. Lopez, 484 F.3d 1186, 1192 

(9th Cir. 2007) (en banc); then quoting United States v. 

Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 275 (1944)). We need not decide 

whether venue would have been proper in the Northern 

District of California had Abouammo not transmitted the 

falsified documents to the agents. At minimum, the fact that 

he did confirms that venue was proper there. See 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3237(a).

Abouammo nevertheless argues that under Fortenberry,

for venue to lie in the district where ill effects are to be felt, 

the statute must itself require that the wrongful conduct 

“actually affect” something in that district. And because 

§ 1519 does not require that the falsification of records 

necessarily affect an ongoing investigation (or even that the 

investigation be ongoing, as opposed to merely 

contemplated), Abouammo maintains that under 

Fortenberry, venue can lie only in the district in which he 

created the false invoice.

Abouammo misunderstands Fortenberry and, in the 

process, would have us contradict Angotti. As we have 

discussed, the threshold problem in Fortenberry was that the 

statute of conviction did not “expressly contemplate[] the 

effect of influencing the action” of another, as it did in 

Angotti. Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 710. In the absence of 

such express statutory language, Fortenberry considered 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 41

whether the statute permitted effects-based venue on the 

theory that the statute necessarily required the proscribed

actus reus to have real-world effects. Id. at 706 (explaining 

the government’s position that materiality under § 1001 

“necessarily depends on how a listener would perceive the 

utterance, wherever the listener might be located”).

Fortenberry held that this theory failed because

“[m]ateriality” “does not require anything to actually 

happen.” Id. at 707. Because “materiality requires only that 

a statement have the capacity to influence a federal agency,”

§ 1001’s materiality requirement was not sufficient on its 

own to reflect an effects-based test for venue. Id. It was in 

this context that we observed that § 1001 “proscribes making 

materially false statements—not actually affecting or 

interfering with a federal agency’s investigation through the 

making of the statements.” Id. at 709.

Contrary to Abouammo’s argument on appeal, this 

aspect of our discussion in Fortenberry does not mean that

for effects-based venue to lie, the statute of conviction must 

always require an “actual” obstructive effect on someone or 

something within the district. That would not be consistent 

with our decision in Angotti. In Angotti, the statute of 

conviction did not require the false statement to actually 

affect or interfere with a federally insured institution—just 

that the statement be made “for the purpose of 

influencing . . . the action” of such an institution. 105 F.3d 

at 542 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 1014). Indeed, in Angotti we 

were clear that under § 1014, “there is no question that a 

crime was committed once Angotti’s statements reached the 

bank office in the Northern District,” meaning that “the 

statements did not have to reach their intended destination in 

order to constitute a crime.” Id. at 543 (emphasis added). 

Notwithstanding this, we held that venue could lie in a 

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42 USA V. ABOUAMMO

district other than where the false statements were first made. 

Id. at 543–44.

Properly considered, then, under Fortenberry the statute 

of conviction need not categorically require “actual” adverse 

effects or interference in a district for effects-based venue to 

be proper there. Rather, we considered whether such actual 

effects were a necessary feature of the statute of conviction 

in Fortenberry only because the statutory language did not

“expressly contemplate[] the effect of influencing the action 

of” another. Fortenberry, 89 F.4th at 710. When the statute 

does expressly contemplate those effects—through language 

such as “for the purpose of” or “with the intent to”—there is 

no additional venue requirement that the statute proscribe

conduct that, by definition, actually affects or interferes with 

something in the venue. Instead, when the statute “expressly 

contemplates the effect of influencing” another, id. at 710, 

venue can be secured by demonstrating that, on the facts, the 

offense continued or was completed in that district. See 

Angotti, 105 F.3d at 543–44; 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a). That is 

the case here.

D

Abouammo expresses concern that our interpretation of 

§ 1519 will unduly prejudice criminal defendants. But his 

concerns are both overstated and ones that our past 

precedents have already found insufficient. 

We previously recognized in Angotti that “venue will 

often be possible in districts with which the defendant had 

no personal connection, and which may occasionally be 

distant from where the defendant originated the actions 

constituting the offense.” 105 F.3d at 543. But this is a 

feature, not a bug, of a system of rules that allows for effectsbased venue and treats some offenses as continuing in 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 43

nature, thereby expanding the locations in which a crime is 

deemed committed. See United States v. Gonzalez, 683 F.3d 

1221, 1226 (9th Cir. 2012) (“Yet, while the venue 

requirement protects the accused from the unfairness and 

hardship of prosecution in a remote place, the constitutional 

text makes plain that unfairness is generally not a concern 

when a defendant is tried in a district wherein the crime shall 

have been committed.”) (quotations, citations, and 

alterations omitted). Nor are criminal defendants necessarily

stuck in distant fora. As we explained in Angotti, a 

defendant is free to ask that the proceedings, or one or more 

counts, be transferred to a more convenient district. See 

Angotti, 105 F.3d at 544 (citing FED. R. CRIM. P. 21(b)).

Finally, we note that even if concerns of perceived

unfairness could overcome both statutory text and precedent, 

there is nothing particularly unfair about Abouammo’s 

prosecution for falsification of records taking place in the 

Northern District of California. The FBI agents who 

interviewed Abouammo identified themselves as “FBI 

agents from the San Francisco office.” Although it was not 

necessary for the government to show that Abouammo 

specifically foresaw effects in the Northern District, see 

Gonzalez, 683 F.3d at 1226 (first citing 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a),

then citing Angotti, 105 F.3d at 545), Abouammo can hardly 

feign surprise at the existence of a federal investigation 

being conducted in the Northern District of California. 

There are also many other features of this case that connect 

Abouammo to the Northern District, most obviously his

employment with Twitter, which gave rise to the entire case.

In Fortenberry, by contrast, “[t]he only connection 

between Fortenberry and the Central District of California, 

where he was tried and convicted, was that the agents 

worked in a Los Angeles office.” 89 F.4th at 709. The 

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44 USA V. ABOUAMMO

location of the agents is hardly the only connection to the 

venue in this case. 

Indeed, the connection to the venue here is arguably 

stronger than in Angotti. There, the falsified loan document 

reached the Central District only because “an innocent 

middle agent” mortgage company “unwittingly” sent the 

loan documents to a bank branch in the Northern District of 

California, which then sent them to the bank’s headquarters 

in the Central District. Angotti, 105 F.3d at 541. Here, 

Abouammo himself directly transmitted a false document to 

FBI agents from San Francisco. This is not a situation in 

which the government can be described as manipulating or 

manufacturing venue.

We hold that a prosecution under § 1519 may take place 

in the venue where documents were wrongfully falsified or 

in the venue in which the obstructed federal investigation 

was taking place. Abouammo’s misconduct properly 

subjected him to prosecution in either venue. We affirm 

Abouammo’s conviction under § 1519.

* * *

We affirm Abouammo’s convictions. But as set forth in 

our accompanying memorandum disposition, we vacate his 

sentence and remand for resentencing. 

AFFIRMED IN PART; VACATED AND 

REMANDED IN PART.

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 45

LEE, Circuit Judge, concurring:

Our Constitution requires criminal trials to be “held in 

the State where the said Crimes shall have been convicted.” 

Art. III, § 2, cl. 3. While this venue provision may appear 

somewhat technical, the Framers included it because they 

feared governmental abuse of power. They experienced it 

firsthand, as the English government had routinely 

transported colonial defendants to England to be tried there. 

See DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE para. 2 (U.S. 1776) 

(listing “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for 

pretended offences” as one of the “repeated injuries and 

usurpations” by King George). 

Relying on this constitutional guarantee, Ahmad 

Abouammo—who falsified records at his home in Seattle—

challenges his conviction in part for having been tried in the 

Northern District of California. I agree with Judge Bress’ 

excellent opinion, including his analysis of why 

Abouammo’s venue argument fails under our circuit’s 

precedent. I write separately to highlight that our decision 

today does not give free rein to the government to 

manufacture venue and that we should scrutinize potential 

fig-leaf justifications for venue in future cases.

* * * *

Abouammo, a former Twitter employee, accessed 

company databases about the platform’s users and provided 

personal information about a Saudi dissident user to a Saudi 

national. That Saudi national later wired $100,000 to a bank 

account opened by Abouammo and gave him an expensive 

Hublot watch. 

When FBI agents from the San Francisco office 

interviewed Abouammo at his Seattle home, he claimed that 

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46 USA V. ABOUAMMO

he had done consulting work for the Saudi national and 

fabricated a fake invoice. Later, a jury in the Northern 

District of California convicted Abouammo for falsifying 

records with the intent to impede a federal investigation in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1519. 

Abouammo argues that he should have been tried in 

Seattle, not in Northern California, because he created the 

fake invoice at his home there. As Judge Bress explains in 

his opinion, Abouammo’s venue argument falters under our 

precedents. We have held that venue in a criminal trial may 

be proper in either the place where the criminal act occurred 

or where the effects of the crime were directed for a 

continuing offense. See United States v. Angotti, 105 F.3d 

539 (9th Cir. 1997) (venue proper in the Central District of 

California for the charge of making false statement to 

influence the action of a federally insured institution because 

the false loan documents sent to the bank branch in the 

Northern District were ultimately approved by the bank’s 

headquarters in the Central District). 

Here, Abouammo falsified his invoice with the intent to 

obstruct a federal investigation being conducted by FBI 

agents based in San Francisco. Under Angotti’s reasoning, 

the Northern District of California was a proper venue: the 

crime of falsifying records is a “continuing offense that may 

be prosecuted in the district where the false [record] is 

ultimately received” by the people it was intended to 

influence. Angotti, 105 F.3d at 542. It is no surprise that 

FBI agents from San Francisco investigated Abouammo 

because Twitter was headquartered there. In short, there is 

no whiff that the government intentionally used San 

Francisco-based FBI agents to manufacture venue in the 

Northern District of California. 

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USA V. ABOUAMMO 47

But one can imagine some government officials trying to 

game the system by involving agents from a particular 

district with an eye towards asserting venue in what they 

view as a favorable district. For example, an investigation 

based in North Carolina might enlist the help of FBI agents 

from Washington, D.C. purportedly based on expertise or a 

lack of resources. And if someone provides a false 

document to a D.C.-based agent, then the government could 

perhaps argue that the case should be tried in Washington, 

D.C. because that person had the “intent to impede, obstruct, 

or influence the investigation” being conducted by agents 

based in D.C. 18 U.S.C. § 1519. 

We should be wary of such attempts by the government 

to cherry-pick favored venues through pretextual reliance on 

out-of-district agents. The Constitution safeguards against 

such abuse of power by ensuring that criminal defendants 

face a jury of their peers in the appropriate venue. See 

United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 275 (1944) (“Aware 

of the unfairness and hardship to which trial in an 

environment alien to the accused exposes him, the Framers 

wrote [this] into the Constitution.”); see also U.S. CONST.

amend. VI. Courts should thus smoke out any governmental 

schemes to manufacture venue and transfer such cases to the 

appropriate forum. See FED. R. OF CRIM. PROC. 21(b). 

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