Reuters reported that threats to federal judges and prosecutors had more than doubled in the year following the 2020 election. Reuters obtained previously unreported data from the US Marshals Service, the agency that is tasked with protecting federal judges, federal prosecutors, and court officials.
[[{“value”:”According to a Reuters report, threats to national judges and prosecutors have more than doubled since the election of 2020.
The US Marshals Service, which is tasked with protecting 2,700 federal judges as well as more than 30, 000 national prosecutors and court officials, provided previously unidentified data to Reuters, demonstrating that from 224 in fiscal 2021 to 457 by the end of Sept. 30. Severe threats against prosecutors also increased dramatically, rising from 68 in 2021 to 155 by 2023.
The spikes occur as Trump has publicly criticized the judges who preside over his numerous court cases and as his supporters have targeted the exact judges—as well as election workers—for disproven objections to the 2020 election results. For instance, as I noted last month, Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over Trump’s$ 370 million civil fraud trial ( which took place in the New York State Supreme Court, not the federal court ), was the target of a swatting incident that happened just hours before the trial was adjudicated and hours after Trump referred to him as” TRUMP HATING JUDGE” preside over” RIGGED AND UNFAIR TRIAL” in an earlier Truth Social post. As my colleague Russ Choma noted at the time, Trump had even argued with Engoron throughout the proceedings, even storming out of the courtroom when the judge refused to throw the case out.
And while some officials, including Engoron, have attempted to retaliate against Trump by issuing gag orders, as Russ reported next year, the new information released by Reuters suggests that those efforts may be ineffective and premature.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is in charge of Trump’s election interference case in the DC federal court and whom Trump has referred to as” 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 before Engoron, according to reports, after the Metropolitan Police Department was contacted by the FBI after receiving false reports of an incident that occurred at Chunkan’S home. Additionally, Chutkan was accused of being threatened by a Texas woman last August, who allegedly told her that “if Trump does n’t win the presidency in 2024, we’re coming to kill you,” according to the Associated Press. Chutkan ended up slapping Trump in October with a minimal gag order that forbade him from criticizing witnesses, prosecutors, or court employees in the criminal case involving his attempts to thwart the 2020 election.
According to my colleague David Corn, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who “hit Trump with four charges for illegally trying to overturn the 2020 election,” was likewise presumably the target of a Christmas Day swatting incident.
The agency has “growing concern” about the rising threats, which they attribute to political vitriol, according to Marshals Director Ronald Davis, who testified on the threats at a House Judiciary subcommittee oversight hearing today. However, Davis claimed that in the past, such threats more frequently came from people who were upset about judges ‘ decisions in their individual cases.
According to Davis, the threat environment that is currently worrying me is when people criticize the legal system or the government, which results in those verbal assaults. ” And that marks the start of the procedure that jeopardizes both our democracy and the judiciary.””}]] According to a Reuters report, threats to national judges and prosecutors have more than doubled since the 2020 election. The US Marshals Service, which is tasked with protecting 2,700 federal judges as well as more than 30, 000 federal prosecutors and court officials, provided previously unidentified data to Reuters, demonstrating that the number of major threats is high.
Reuters reported that threats to federal judges and prosecutors had more than doubled in the year following the 2020 election. Reuters obtained previously unreported data from the US Marshals Service, the agency that is tasked with protecting federal judges, federal prosecutors, and court officials.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/02/federal-judges-prosecutors-trump-threats-double-2020/
