Whether a defendant charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 1519—which prohibits knowingly falsifying a document to obstruct a federal investigation—must be tried in the district where the falsification occurred. Alternatively, the Court considered whether such a defendant may be tried in the district where the federal investigation was located. This involves determining if the "contemplated effects" of the falsification constitute an essential conduct element for venue purposes.

• Venue is only proper in the district where the alleged falsification of the document occurred.
• In this case, the conduct constituting the offense took place in Seattle, meaning the trial should have been held in the Western District of Washington.
• The Northern District of California is an improper venue because no conduct constituting the offense happened in that location.

• Venue is proper in the district where the federal investigation the defendant intended to stymie was ongoing or contemplated.
• Section 1519 is an "inchoate offense" with an integral relationship to other obstruction-of-justice crimes.
• Because the false invoice was transmitted to an FBI agent in San Francisco, the Northern District of California is a proper venue, analogizing this to the venue rule for conspiracy cases under *Whitfeld v. United States*, 543 U. S. 209 (2005).

• The Court held that a defendant charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1519 must be tried in the district where the falsification occurred.
• The Court relied on the constitutional safeguards of Article III, § 2, cl. 3 and the Sixth Amendment, which entitle defendants to a trial in the state and district where the crime was committed.
• The Court applied the "essential conduct elements" test from *United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno*, 526 U. S. 275, 279–280, which requires courts to identify the "conduct constituting the offense" and ascertain the location of those criminal acts.
• The Court reasoned that 18 U.S.C. § 1519 imposes liability on anyone who knowingly "falsifies" a "record [or] document" "with the intent to impede [or] obstruct" a federal investigation, and that the only prohibited act is the falsification itself.
• The Court rejected the Ninth Circuit's reasoning that "contemplated effects" are part of the essential conduct, stating that the statute's concern with effects is confined to the defendant's mens rea and does not require that the falsification actually impact an investigation.
• The Court cited *United States v. Johnson*, 323 U. S. 273 (1944), noting that when a crime is "complete" upon a specific act, venue is limited to where that act occurred, regardless of where the results of that act are felt.
• The Court dismissed the Government's "inchoate offense" theory, citing *Black's Law Dictionary* to explain that inchoate offenses are a "step toward the commission of another crime," whereas § 1519 is a standalone crime.
• Because the only proscribed conduct is the act of falsification, the Court concluded that venue must be based on where that specific act occurred.