MAGA is now bombarding US judges with pizzas in wild ‘intimidation plot'

News.com.au

22-05-2025

America has weaponised the humble pizza.
It's hot. It's delicious. It's convenient.
It can be tailored to cross almost any taste divide.
The Italian immigrant has long since become a staple of the United States diet. But it's just the latest aspect of everyday life to be co-opted by the culture wars tearing the once-great nation apart.
Pizza has become an accidental casualty of the clash between US President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and the nation's independent judiciary.
Federal judges are being delivered free pizzas.
They do not choose them. They do not order them. They do not want them.
But pizzas have begun landing on the doorsteps of hundreds of judges across at least seven states.
They're not a gift. They're an intimidation: 'We know where you live. We're coming for you'.
It is a symbology that has been a decade in the baking.
A conspiracy theory assembled during the 2016 US presidential campaign falsely claimed that New York City police had found evidence high-profile Democrats were running an international satanic pedophilia ring.
This was supposedly centred on a secret basement beneath the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria in Washington DC.
Then, in 2020, the son of a high-profile judge was killed when an upset lawyer disguised himself as a pizza delivery boy and opened fire when he answered the door to the family home.
Slice of power
President Trump campaigned heavily on protecting the US Constitution and applying literal interpretations of its dictates.
But the bombastic former reality television host and real estate developer is having trouble with the separation of powers imposed upon the legislative, judicial and executive branches by the nation's First Founders.
His Executive Orders are being challenged, held up, and sometimes rejected, in court.
The US Constitution does not permit royal decrees from its president. Executive orders have traditionally been little more than memos proclaiming presidential interpretations of actions under legislative and judicial guidance.
Trump is frustrated with these boundaries.
But, despite often being political-partisan appointees, many US judges are still exercising their constitutional independence.
At least 60 have challenged or blocked Trump Administration initiatives based on suspected legal breaches or overreaches of power.
Some are Democrat appointees. Some are Republican.
All have become the focus of an intense verbal campaign from the White House.
'We cannot allow a handful of communist radical left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the president of the United States,' Trump complained at a MAGA rally earlier this month.
And his MAGA followers are eager to help.
Menacing messages. Abusive phone calls. Death threats.
Now: delivery pizzas.
Judges - and their families - are being left in no doubt they are being targeted for not yielding to Trump's will.
Pick up or Delivery?
The overcooked mythology surrounding Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria grew so intense that 28-year-old self-styled 'hero' Edgar Welch took an AR-15 assault rifle to the restaurant, fired into the walls, and ordered staff to 'release' their prisoners.
But there was no basement. And no satanically-enslaved children.
Welch pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and was jailed for four years. He was later killed after pulling a gun on police at a traffic stop.
Conspiracy theorists, however, still maintain that this was all a staged performance to discredit their 'investigations'.
Pizza returned to the political stage shortly after Trump took office for his second shot at the Presidency. But it has taken an even more sinister turn in recent weeks.
Many of the fake orders are now being made under the name 'Daniel Anderl'. That's the deceased son of Judge Esther Salas.
'It went from judges getting pizzas, to then judges' children getting pizzas, to then judges getting pizzas that they didn't order in my murdered son's name,' Salas told the Washington Post last week.
In 2020, a disgruntled lawyer who had had his case dismissed by Salas disguised himself as a pizza delivery driver. He arrived at the judge's home with a concealed firearm and opened fire once the door was opened.
Anderl, 20, was killed. Salas's husband was wounded. But, failing to find Salas herself, the lawyer shot himself dead.
Now orders, falsely placed in Anderl's name, have reportedly been delivered to judges' homes in Washington DC, New York, California, Tennessee, South Carolina, Maryland and Oregon.
Salas says the pizzas are threats.
'We know the first is, 'I know where you live.' Second is, 'We know where your children live.' And the third now is, 'Do you want to end up like Judge Salas? Do you want to end up like Daniel?' she said.
Hot'n'spicy
'The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity,' US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told a conference earlier this month. 'The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy.'
And the threats cross the political divide.
One of the first pizza delivery recipients was US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. She was appointed to her post by President Donald Trump in 2020. But she opposed his move to freeze US Congressional foreign aid programs.
In April, the Judicial Conference of the United States asked for increased funding for personal security.
There were 179 threats of violence against judges in 2019. By 2023, that had soared to 457. Now the Marshals Service, tasked with judicial security, reports that the 'intensity' of these threats is increasing.
Meanwhile, MAGA is getting impatient.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski has accused the political movement of using death threats to ensure the party remains firmly behind President Trump.
'I'm oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that's not right,' she said.
'We are all afraid. It's quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before.'
Key MAGA figures - especially those arrested during the January 6, 2021, insurrection attempt on Capitol Hill - have been expressing frustration at the 'lack of progress' in dismantling the 'deep state'.
'We want justice!' demands Richard 'Bigo' Barnett. He had been photographed with his feet on Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk during the riot.
'We want the promises made kept! We stood! We showed up when Donald asked!' he posted to social media. 'We have seen nothing.'
Former talk-show host and MAGA influencer Dan Bongino is feeling the sharp end of his own pressure. The Trump Administration appointed him as second-in-command of the FBI.
Bongino is widely known for his allegations of criminal cabals within the Democrat party, of conspiracies to discredit and convict Trump, of 'deep state' machinations to avoid legal and legislative direction.
He's now being accused of failing to produce results.
'I know you've been let down in the past,' he recently responded to his disgruntled MAGA audience on social media. 'You're owed better. And we're going to produce it.'
He enigmatically added that he was developing 'a number of significant initiatives to ensure that the mistakes of the past are never repeated.'