President Trump’s angry appeal to a federal judge on Tuesday, whose ruling on deportation ruled that his administration launched a series of near-inherent social media mockery and threats, including the image of a judge driving in handcuffs.
The call was made against an ominous background. Police in Charleston, South Carolina were dispatched to the home of one of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s sisters for threatening a pipe bomb in her mailbox. The email threatened: “After opening the mailbox next, the explosion of the device will be triggered immediately.”
The judge said the bomb proved to be a scam, but the threats and intimidation faced by the judge and his family in recent weeks are real. The potential for violence against judges appears to be rising at the moment when the judiciary weighs the key decisions of the Trump administration’s policy legitimacy.
“I feel like people play Russian roulette in our lives,” said New Jersey District Court Judge Esther Salas, whose 20-year-old son was shot dead in her home in 2020 by a lawyer who called himself an “anti-feminist” attorney.
“It’s not an exaggeration,” she added. “I beg our leaders to realize that life is under threat.”
Threats and intimidation may not have turned into actual violence, but they seem to be growing as Trump, his advisers and his supporters question the legitimacy of the American legal system almost every day. There is no evidence that in the high-profile cases of the confronter, the jurist’s judgment has been distorted by his opponent. But at least, the number of public perceptions of judicial rulings that could be subject to court attacks.
Attempts have taken many forms: bomb threats, anonymous calls for sending police SWAT teams to home addresses, and even delivery of pizza, a seemingly harmless prank but conveys a message.
“They know where you and your family live,” said a judge who was in charge of the lawsuit against the Trump administration and who accepted the pizza. The judge asked to be anonymous and quoted his own safety and family concerns.
The day the police responded to Justice Barrett’s sister home, the U.S. Marshal Service in the southern New York region issued an announcement: The federal judge’s goal is anonymous Domino delivery. Justice Barrett’s immediate family members were those who received pizza delivery, police said.
“This emerging form of harassment can be seen in several regions across the country,” the communiqué reads.
Judges nominated by both presidents are targets, but a pattern is emerging: many threats targeting jurists who are litigating against the Trump administration.
“We assess these incidents to be associated with high-profile cases that have been widely reported by the media and the public interest,” the Marshal Services wrote.
John C. C., Judge John C., next came the mailbox bomb threat to the FBI, which proved to be a scam.
Court Secretary Frank Perry said John J. McConnell Jr. blocked a Trump administration attempt to freeze up to $3 trillion of federal funds to state funding, and his court building received a large number of phone messages and emails, some of whom were forwarded to the marshal service for review, after a federal judge in Rhode Island was in a Rhode Island judge.
The threat to judges and judges is nothing new. According to federal officials, in June 2022, an armed man, Nicholas John Roske, was scheduled for Judicial Justice Brett M.’s trial was scheduled for June.
Even so, members of the federal judiciary are still moving towards danger online and in the real world.
Two federal appeal judges, Republican-appointed Jeffrey S. Sutton and Richard J.
“The criticism is not surprising; it’s part of the work,” said Judge Sutton, Chief Justice of the Sixth Circuit. “But I do think that when it reaches the level of threat, it’s really about attacking judicial independence.”
In a social media post on Tuesday, Mr. Trump asked not only impeachment district judge James Boasberg. He also called the judge who issued an order temporarily blocking the government’s plan to deport Venezuelan immigrants, namely “radical left madman, troublemaker and inciteer.”
The Post prompted Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to denounce Mr. Trump in a rare public statement. “Impotence is an appropriate response to the differences regarding judicial decisions,” he wrote.
But by then, Mr. Trump’s followers had followed his leadership. The pseudo-anonymous social media account calls the judge a judge who opposes the president’s “traitor” and “illegal”. A post titled Judge Boasberg is a “Judge who likes terrorists”. Another suggestion he has been sent to Gitmo for 20 years. ”
Mr. Trump’s close ally Laura Loomer trained her 1.5 million online followers to follow Judge Boasberg’s daughter.
“His family is a national security threat,” she wrote.
When Mr. Trump’s billionaire consultant and owner of social media site X, Elon Musk, reposted what Ms. Loomer claimed was personal information, which she collected from Judge McConnell’s daughter’s LinkedIn page.
Mr. Trump’s conservative appeal judge James C. Ho (James C.
“Judges have been facing attacks of hatred, and worse, worse, worse. “Only when you like the outcome, only defending judicial independence can protect the judiciary.” This politicizes the judiciary. ”
Data collected from the Marshal Service that provides protection for judges shows that the number of investigation threats to federal judges, prosecutors, court officials and the public has declined in the past two years, and by 822 in 2024, starting from 1,362 in 2022 and starting from 1362 in 2022, applications for MARSHALS services are not responding to the first statistics for 202525.
Chief Justice Roberts issued an unusually gloomy and urgent warning in his annual report of the federal judiciary, warning of a “significant rise” of threats. He said Marshal’s service data showed that hostile threats and communication against judges have more than doubled in the past decade.
“The judges I talked to were worried,” said Gabe Roth of the nonprofit advocacy group Fix Court. “More than they were four, eight, twelve years ago.”
Court observers say picking on individual judges who oppose the government poses a unique danger, both for the judges themselves and the judicial system that relies on their fearless impartiality.
“It doesn’t require the mob to storm the court building,” said Jeremy Fogel, a retired federal judge and moral expert. “It just needs someone who decides to follow the judge. ”
According to Judge Marjorie Rendell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the threat of threatening to impose an improper one of his rulings shows that there is no doubt that judicial orders are ignored and avoiding conventional appeal proceedings.
“We don’t have the power of a sword or a wallet,” she said of the justice system. “We rely on respect. The moment when you start to undermine that respect? Who knows where that could lead.”
Judge Coughenour was threatened at the 1999 trial of the Freedom of Montana and again at the 2001 trial of al-Qaeda terrorists.
“I’ve been walking for so long and that thing rolled out of my back,” he said in an interview.
But has Congress threatened to repel his ruling? Judge Kunol said these were “things I’ve never seen before”.
A Supreme Court spokesman said the court did not comment on security matters. Justice Barrett did not respond to a request for comment. Law enforcement officers in Louisiana confirmed they received incidents from the home address of the judicial parents and her other sister and forwarded the incidents to federal law enforcement.
Julie Tate Contributed to the research. The generated audio Parin Behrooz
