Opinion of the Court
III
Pugin and Cordero-Garcia offer four main arguments in response. None is persuasive.
First, Pugin and Cordero-Garcia point to 18 U. S. C. §1503(a), which among other things prohibits persons from endeavoring “to influence, obstruct, or impede” the “due administration of justice.” According to Pugin and Cordero-Garcia, that specific prohibition requires that an investigation or proceeding be pending. Cf. Pettibone v. United States, 148 U. S. 197, 207 (1893). But even if they are correct about that point, §1503(a) is only one obstruction offense among the many obstruction offenses in Title 18. And many federal obstruction offenses—like many state obstruction offenses—proscribe obstruction when an investigation or proceeding is not pending. Moreover, if Congress wanted to define offenses “relating to obstruction of justice” to have the same coverage as §1503(a), Congress knew how to do so: Congress could have cross-referenced §1503(a) in §1101(a)(43)(S) in the same way that Congress cross-referenced numerous other statutes in §1101(a)(43). See, e.g., §§1101(a)(43)(B)–(F). But Congress included no such cross-reference to §1503(a) in §1101(a)(43)(S).
Second, Pugin and Cordero-Garcia cite a few authorities from the 1700s and 1800s and assert that obstruction of justice historically required that an investigation or proceeding be pending. But the historical record cited by Pugin and Cordero-Garcia does not back up their broad claim. See, e.g., 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 126 (1769) (explaining without qualification that endeavoring “to dissuade a witness from giving evidence” was an “impedimen[t] of justice”). More to the point, as we have explained at length, the widespread and contemporary understanding of obstruction of justice at the time Congress enacted §1101(a)(43)(S) in 1996 did not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending. Cf. Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 593 (1990).
