Key facts
- The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned Ahmad Abouammo's obstruction conviction.
- The court ruled Abouammo was tried in California, but his interactions with the FBI were in Washington state.
- Justice Elena Kagan stated the trial for falsifying a document must occur where the document was falsified.
- The ruling does not impact Abouammo's convictions for acting as an unregistered foreign agent or fraud.
- Abouammo was released from prison in June 2025 while his appeal was pending.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously overturned the obstruction conviction of Ahmad Abouammo, a former Twitter employee accused of spying for Saudi Arabia. The justices found that Abouammo was wrongly tried in California for knowingly falsifying a document to impede an FBI investigation, as his interactions with FBI agents occurred at his home in Seattle, Washington.
Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan explained that while proving the offense of falsifying a document to impede an investigation is relatively straightforward, the law dictates that such a trial must take place where the defendant falsified the document. In this case, that venue was Seattle, within the Western District of Washington.
The Supreme Court's decision did not address other criminal counts against Abouammo, including charges of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and committing wire and honest services fraud. Abouammo, 47, had been sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison but was released in June 2025 while his appeal was ongoing.
Abouammo worked at Twitter, now known as X, from 2013 to 2015 as a media partnerships manager for the Middle East and North Africa. Prosecutors alleged that while working in Twitter's San Francisco office, he provided confidential information about two Saudi dissidents to a Saudi official in exchange for a $42,000 watch and two $100,000 wire transfers. Later, when interviewed at his Seattle home by two FBI agents, Abouammo allegedly denied providing the information and claimed the payments were for consulting work. He then created and emailed a fake invoice to an agent when asked for supporting documents, leading to the obstruction charge.