Ahmad Abouammo v. United States (25-5146)
- Term
- OT 2025
- Argued
- 2026-03-30
- Decided
- 2026-06-11
- Vote
- 9-0 for Abouammo
- Opinion
- Justice Kagan
- Majority
- Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Jackson
The case in brief
Facts
Ahmad Abouammo worked for Twitter in San Francisco, where he gave confidential information about Saudi dissidents on the platform to a high-level Saudi official. After he moved to Seattle, two San Francisco-based FBI agents interviewed him at home, and when they asked for proof that the official's payments were for consulting work, he made a fake invoice and emailed it to one of them. He was charged in federal court in the Northern District of California, which includes San Francisco, with falsifying a record to obstruct a federal investigation. He argued he could only be tried where the fake invoice was made, in Seattle, but the trial court disagreed and a jury convicted him. A federal appeals court, the Ninth Circuit, upheld the conviction, saying the trial could take place where the FBI investigation was based.
Question
Can someone charged with falsifying a document to block a federal investigation be tried where the investigation was based, or only where the document was falsified?
Conclusion
Abouammo won in a unanimous 9-0 decision written by Justice Kagan, which reversed the Ninth Circuit and sent the case back. The Court held that a person charged under this law must be tried in the place where the falsification happened, which here was Seattle, not San Francisco. It reasoned that the place of trial (called "venue") depends on where the forbidden acts took place, and the only act this law forbids is falsifying a document; the person's intent and any effect on the investigation do not change that. The Court also rejected the government's argument that this crime is just a step toward some larger obstruction crime, calling it a standalone offense.
Opinion of the Court
Authored by Justice Kagan (4,025 words total).
Volume 608 U. S. Part 2 Pages 597–607
THE SUPREME COURT June 11, 2026
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certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit No. 25–5146. Argued March 30, 2026—Decided June 11, 2026 This case presents the question whether a defendant charged with violating 18 U. S. C. § 1519—which makes it a crime to knowingly falsify a document with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation—must be tried in the district where the falsifcation occurred, or whether he may alternatively be tried in the district where the federal investigation was located. While employed by Twitter at its San Francisco offce, petitioner Ahmad Abouammo provided confdential information to a high-level Saudi offcial about Saudi dissidents posting on the company's platform. In exchange, the offcial wired Abouammo $300,000. Around the same time, Abouammo left Twitter and relocated to Seattle, where he started a social-media consulting business. Two San Francisco-based FBI agents, who were investigating unauthorized disclosures of Twitter account information, later few to Seattle to interview Abouammo at his home. During the interview, Abouammo denied giving the Saudi offcial confdential information, claiming that the payments were for consulting work. When the agents asked for supporting documentation, Abouammo went upstairs, created a fake invoice, and emailed it to one of the agents. Back in San Francisco, the agents discovered from the emailed document's date-and-time metadata what Abouammo had just done. Abouammo was indicted in the Northern District of California for falsifying a record under § 1519. He moved to dismiss the charge for improper venue, arguing that he could be tried only where the alleged falsifcation occurred. The District Court denied the motion, fnding venue also proper in the place where the FBI investigation was located, and a jury convicted Abouammo. The Ninth Circuit affrmed, reasoning that § 1519's intent requirement—“with the intent” to “obstruct” an investigation—made the “contemplated effects” of the falsifcation part of the “essential conduct” of the offense, thereby permitting trial “where the investigation” the defendant “intended to stymie [was] ongoing or contemplated.” 122 F. 4th 1072, 1092–1093.
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Held: A defendant charged with violating § 1519 must be tried in the district where the falsifcation occurred; he cannot be tried in a different
district where the investigation was located because no “conduct constituting the offense” happened there. The Constitution twice safeguards a defendant's venue right: Article III instructs that “Trial of all Crimes” shall “be held in the State where the Crimes shall have been committed,” § 2, cl. 3, and the Sixth Amendment entitles criminal defendants to a jury “of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” To implement that constitutional rule, courts generally determine the location of the offense's “essential conduct elements” by identifying “the conduct constituting the offense”—the things a defendant must do to violate the statute—and then ascertaining the place where those criminal acts occurred. United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U. S. 275, 279–280. Under this framework, the venue for trying a § 1519 offense must be where the document's falsifcation happened—which here was in Seattle. Section 1519 imposes criminal liability on a person who knowingly “falsifes” a “record [or] document” “with the intent to impede [or] obstruct” a federal investigation. The only prohibited act is the falsifcation of a document; once a person has committed that act with the requisite intent, he need do nothing more to violate the law. Because the only proscribed conduct is falsifcation, venue must be where falsifcation occurred. Contrary to the Ninth Circuit's view, § 1519's special intent provision does not lead to a different result. This Court has never looked to a statute's mens rea elements in considering venue, nor would it make much sense to do so. A falsifcation with the intent to obstruct an investigation occurs at the same place as a falsifcation without that intent—which is to say, at the place of falsifcation. The mens rea requirement thus adds nothing to the conduct-focused analysis. The Ninth Circuit treated the “contemplated effects” of the falsifcation as part of § 1519's “essential conduct” elements, 122 F. 4th, at 1092, but that is not so: The statute's concern with effects is instead confned to the defendant's mens rea. Section 1519, unlike laws barring actual obstruction, does not require that falsifying a document have any impact on an investigation. Whatever obstructive effects Abouammo's false invoice may have had in northern California, they were not elements of his crime and cannot fgure in determining where his crime was committed. The Government, for its part, declares § 1519 an “inchoate offense,” with some integral relationship to another (though unspecifed) obstruction-of-justice crime. But § 1519 is an independent crime, not an inchoate offense. Inchoate offenses are necessarily “[a] step toward the commission of another crime.” Black's Law Dictionary 1297. But a person can commit a § 1519 crime without taking any steps toward another crime—for example, by falsifying a document with the requisite
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