Abouammo v. United States · ¶19

The Government tries to escape those difficulties by declaring §1519 an “inchoate offense,” with some integral relationship to another (though unspecified) obstruction-ofjustice crime. Tr. of Oral Arg. 39; see id., at 38–40. True enough, the Government concedes, that the only act §1519 prohibits is falsifying a document. But the statute’s “intent to obstruct” requirement links it to offenses involving actual obstruction. And because that is so, the Government contends, venue can be based on conduct that is an element of those other crimes (even though not of §1519). So here, the Government posits, Abouammo’s transmission of his false invoice to an FBI agent based in San Francisco would make California’s Northern District a proper place for trial—because that transmission (though irrelevant to §1519) would be critical to proving some “ultimate” obstruction crime. Tr. of Oral Arg. 40. The…

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