Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-5572_l6hn.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

never persuasively explains how “knowingly us[ing ] intim-
idation”  or  “threat[s]”  against  someone  is  not  “wrongful.”
§1512(b).  The same is true for most other subparts of Sec-
tion 1512 that the Government identifies as having a lesser 
mens rea than (c)(2).  Brief for United States 34; see, e.g., 
§1512(a)(1)(A) (criminalizing anyone who “kills or attempts
to kill another person, with intent to” prevent attendance
in an official proceeding); §1512(a)(2)(B)(iv) (criminalizing 
anyone who “uses physical force . . . against any person” in-
tending to cause them to be absent from an official proceed-
ing).  None of those other provisions has a mens rea the Gov-
ernment  may  more  readily  establish  than  the  “corruptly” 
mens rea of subsection (c)(2). 

The  Government  also  contends  that  its  interpretation
creates no surplusage because Section 1512’s other “provi-
sions sweep more broadly than an official proceeding.”  Tr. 
of Oral Arg. 64; Brief for United States 34.  To be sure, sub-
sections  (a)(2)(C),  (b)(3),  and  (d)(2)  criminalize  various 
means  of  preventing  someone  from  giving  a  judge  or  law 
enforcement officer information relating to the commission
or possible commission of a federal offense or a violation of 
conditions of supervised release.  And subsections (d)(3) and 
(4) make it a crime to harass someone and thereby dissuade
them from arresting or prosecuting a person alleged to have 
committed a federal offense.  None of these crimes requires
an “official proceeding.”  But not much if any conduct cov-
ered by those provisions would escape the Government’s ex-
pansive interpretation of subsection (c)(2). For a person to 
have  violated  (c)(2),  “an  official  proceeding  need  not  be
pending  or  about  to  be  instituted.”  §1512(f )(1).    And  be-
cause interference with an arrest or with communications 
to  authorities  about  federal  offenses  could  very  well  ob-
struct the initiation of future official proceedings, the Gov-
ernment’s reading of (c)(2) would still often consume viola-
tions of (a)(2)(C), (b)(3), and (d)(2), (3), and (4).