"Daunting" and "frightening": Federal judges warn of rise in threats and harassment

CBS News

2 days ago

Washington — A trio of federal judges on Thursday publicly detailed threats and harassment they have endured in recent months after handing down decisions against the Trump administration or speaking out against attacks on the federal judiciary, including receiving pizzas that purported to be sent from the late son of a New Jersey federal judge who was the target of an attack.
The appearances marked the first time the judges have spoken out about the threats they've received, and marked the rare occasion of sitting members of the judiciary responding to the attacks leveled against them.
During the course of his second term, President Trump, members of his administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill have lambasted judges who have issued rulings against the president's policies. Some GOP lawmakers have filed articles of impeachment against judges, and the Justice Department has lodged judicial misconduct complaints against two jurists who sit on the federal trial court in Washington, D.C.
The event was hosted by Speak Up for Justice, an organization that seeks to voice support for the judiciary.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell, who is the chief judge of the court in Rhode Island, said he has received six credible death threats. He described one in which a person was searching for McConnell's home address because he wanted "Smith & Wesson to pay me a visit."
McConnell also received a voicemail — played during the forum — from a man that said, "Tell that son of a b***h we're going to come for him," and "how dare you try to put charges on Donald J. Trump." The caller continued, telling McConnell "your ass is going to prison" and "I wish somebody would fucking assassinate your ass, someone needs to f**king wipe his ass out."
The voicemail was one of more than 400 threatening messages that his court has received, McConnell said.
"It's daunting. It was frightening," he said in remarks during the forum. "I've never had anyone threaten to put me in prison, threaten bodily injury, wishing that I was assassinated."
The judge, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama, said it "shook my faith in the judicial system and the rule of law."
But McConnell said the "most heartbreaking call" he received was from the U.S. Marshals, who provide protection for federal judges, informing him that a pizza had been delivered to his home in the name of Daniel Anderl, the late son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas. Anderl was killed when he answered the door at his family's New Jersey home in 2020 and was shot by a disgruntled gunman who was targeting Salas.
CBS News reported in May that about two dozen judges nationwide had received unsolicited pizza deliveries in Anderl's name.
Federal prosecutors have labeled the unsolicited pizza deliveries "pizza doxxing" — a spin on "doxxing," in which somebody's address or other personal information is maliciously made public, often as a form of intimidation.
A U.S. Marshals Service official told CBS News in May the agency — which handles judicial security — is "looking into all the unsolicited pizza deliveries to federal judges and taking appropriate steps to address the matter."
U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik, who presides in Seattle, said that to his knowledge more than 50 judges nationwide have been pizza-doxxed, not including the judges' families and their associates. He said he and his children all received pizza boxes in Anderl's name after he gave press interviews about attacks on the judiciary.
"They're looking into it," Lasnik said about the U.S. Marshals' investigation. "But it's very difficult in this day and age to track where these things originate."
Lasnik said his colleagues handling cases involving Mr. Trump's second-term agenda have been "bombarded with hate mail and hate emails and threats."
"It's so discouraging to a young judge to suddenly not only worry about how do I do this job right, but how do I keep my family safe," he said.
Salas spoke about the five-year anniversary of her son's death, which occurred in July 2020, and the increase in violent rhetoric in recent months that has led to more judges speaking out about the threats they have received.
"You know, we're seeing things coming out, from the top down, from White House spokespeople calling, you know, us crazy, leftist, unconstitutional judges," Salas said. "And I think that we, in fairness, are nonpartisan, but we have to speak the facts. And the facts are that we have political leaders with large social platforms, political leaders with power, right? Calling us deranged and idiots, that is the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that I think caused the judges that are on here today to come forward."
She urged the nation's political leaders to tone down the rhetoric and stop calling judges "corrupt" and "biased."
"They are inviting people to do us harm, they are inviting that man to call you because now he feels emboldened to use those words against you, because our leaders are calling us idiots and deranged and monsters," she said. "Don't make it personal. Appeal us to a higher court."
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, also on the bench in Seattle, said he and his wife were "swatted," an illegal scheme in which people make false emergency calls in an attempt to draw police SWAT teams to the homes of public figures.
Recounting the incident, the judge, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said law enforcement received a call that he had murdered his wife and arrived at their house with their weapons drawn.
Shortly afterward, the FBI informed him that there was a bomb in his house, Coughenour said.
"What kind of people do these things?" he said during the forum. "It's just so disgusting and it's really unspeakable that people will do these things."
Coughenour said that through his decades as a federal judge, he repeatedly heard jurists in other countries discuss how admired the U.S. judiciary was.
But he said it's "stunning to me how much damage has been done to the reputation of our judiciary, because some political actors think they can gain some advantage by attacking the independence of the judiciary and threatening the rule of law."
Coughenour issued a call for lawyers and fellow judges to speak out against the attacks on the judiciary and say "not in this country and not on our watch."
The attacks appear to go beyond threats and harassment and also seek to inflict professional punishments on the judges. McConnell said he was the subject of judicial misconduct complaints filed by America First Legal, a conservative organization that was run by Stephen Miller, and two members of Congress. Miller now serves as White House deputy chief of staff.
Both McConnell and Coughenour are overseeing cases that challenge policies implemented by the second Trump administration. Coughenour in February issued a preliminary injunction blocking Mr. Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship and McConnell in March blocked the White House's freeze on federal funding.
The Justice Department appealed both decisions and legal proceedings are ongoing.
Threats to federal judges have steadily risen over the last six years, according to the Marshals. A vulnerability management program run by the federal judiciary that was established after the death of Salas' son provided services to more than 1,700 judges, 114 retired judges and 235 family members, according to the Judicial Conference's annual report released in March.
In 2022, after the leak of a draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a California man armed with a gun, knife and various tools was arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland home. The man was charged with attempted murder and pleaded not guilty.
Salas told CBS News that it's not just federal judges who are targeted — state judges are now being pizza-doxxed, including those in Florida and Colorado.
Colorado Chief Justice Monica Marquez has "gotten so many pizzas she's stopped counting," said Salas. Marquez cast a deciding vote in a 4-3 decision by Colorado's Supreme Court in December 2023 to disqualify then-candidate Trump from the Colorado ballot before the 2024 election. The court found that Mr. Trump was ineligible for the presidency under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment, a decision that was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court.
Marquez spoke about the toll of that vote in November 2024, which she knew could be the most consequential of her career. She described how she was late for the court's conference that day because "I was in my chambers bathroom vomiting from the stress. I knew exactly what was on the line."
In Florida, two state judges were targeted with pizzas, some also in the name of Salas' son. A 49-year-old man, Jonathan Mark Miller, has been charged with "fraudulent use of personal information" for the orders that targeted the judges.
But Salas said this accountability is rare.
"State bad actors have been caught," she said, but the acts of intimidation against federal judges have come from "unknown sources."
"That troubles me," Salas said, "because we don't know who is doing this. We don't know whether this is a group of bad actors, a few bad actors. But clearly judges are being targeted, and the message is clear."