Report: Threats to Federal Judges Have More Than Doubled Since 2020
New federal data obtained by Reuters shows serious threats against federal judges and prosecutors have spiked since the 2020 election, as Trump has railed against judges overseeing his many court proceedings.Meir Chaimowitz/NurPhoto via ZUMA
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Threats to federal judges and prosecutors have more than doubled since the 2020 election, according to a Reuters report.
Previously unreported data obtained by Reuters from the US Marshals Service—the agency that’s tasked, in part, with protecting 2,700 federal judges and more than 30,000 federal prosecutors and court officials—shows that the number of serious threats against federal judges rose from 224 in fiscal 2021 to 457 in fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30. Serious threats against prosecutors also skyrocketed from 68 in 2021 to 155 in 2023.
The spikes come as Trump has publicly railed against the judges presiding over his many court proceedings, and as his supporters have targeted the same judges—and election workers—over disproven objections to the results of the 2020 election. As I reported last month, for example, Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over Trump’s $370 million civil fraud trial (which unfolded in the New York State Supreme Court, not federal court), was the target of a swatting incident that occurred just hours before closing arguments in the trial—and hours after Trump had called him a “TRUMP HATING JUDGE” presiding over a “RIGGED AND UNFAIR TRIAL” in a Truth Social post. Trump had also clashed with Engoron throughout the proceedings, even storming out of the courtroom when the judge refused to toss the case, as my colleague Russ Choma reported at the time.
And while some officials, including Engoron, have tried to clap back at Trump by issuing gag orders, as Russ reported last year, the new data published by Reuters suggests those efforts may come as too little, too late.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who’s overseeing Trump’s election interference case in DC federal court, and who Trump has called “a highly partisan Obama appointed Judge…who should recuse herself based on the horrible things she has said, to silence me,” was also the victim of a “swatting” incident just days prior to Engoron’s, after a false report of a shooting at Chutkan’s residence was called into the Metropolitan Police Department, according to reports. And a Texas woman was charged with threatening to kill Chutkan last August, allegedly telling her, “if Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you,” the Associated Press reported. In October, Chutkan wound up slapping Trump with a limited gag order that barred him from attacking court employees, prosecutors, or witnesses in the criminal case centered on his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Special Counsel Jack Smith—who “hit Trump with four charges for illegally trying to overturn the 2020 election,” as my colleague David Corn wrote—was also reportedly the target of a swatting incident on Christmas Day.
Marshals Director Ronald Davis, who testified on the threats at a House Judiciary subcommittee oversight hearing today, told Reuters that the agency has “growing concern” about the rising threats, which they attribute to political vitriol—whereas in the past, Davis said, such threats more often came from individuals who were upset about judges’ rulings in their individual cases.
“The threat environment right now that is causing me concern is when people disagree with the judicial process or the government, and that turns into those verbal attacks,” Davis told Reuters. “And that is the beginning of the process that threatens the judiciary and threatens our democracy.”
