Sitting federal judges targeted for impeachment or misconduct complaints by the Trump administration and its allies are speaking out publicly — some for the very first time — because the danger to judicial independence, they say, is now “unprecedented” and growing terrifyingly and intimately violent.
“I double dare you. Tell the judge. Give me a call back and tell that son of a bitch, we’re going to come for him and send his ass to prison… somebody should wipe him out. You damn white son of a trashy bitch,” a man said, his crackling over a voicemail for U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island.
One obscenity after another flowed amid promises to assassinate McConnell or harm his family if he dare cross the president. McConnell received the call after he had blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze roughly $3 trillion in federal funding to the states.
The voicemail was one of 400 similar messages McConnell received. Investigators also told him someone on the dark web searched for his home address and posted a message about wanting “Smith & Wesson to visit.” The judge received six confirmed credible death threats, and his family wasn’t spared either.
Laura Loomer, the far right propagandist and Trump ally, tweeted a photo of the judge’s daughter on social media after he was first assigned the federal funding case. McConnell said Elon Musk “picked up on it” and amplified Loomer’s post to his millions of followers. Things spiraled out of control from there, he said.
His daughter, a former federal employee, was doxxed and received threats, the judge said Thursday during a conference hosted by Speak Up For Justice, a non-partisan group of judges, lawyers and other legal professionals who hope to protect the nation’s courts from political interference.
“I’ve been on the bench almost 15 years, and I must say, it’s the one time that actually shook my faith in the judicial system and the rule of law and the work that we do. I’ve never spoken about what’s happened to me personally. I’m not looking for pity or sympathy, I want to be able to just do my job again and uphold the Constitution. I want the public to speak out once again and support an independent judiciary, a judiciary where each one of us is safe to follow the rule of law without fear or favor,” McConnell said.
Violent attacks, threats and attempts to intimidate judges have been on the rise in recent years, affecting judges on both the federal and state level, and regardless of what president appointed them.
But since Trump has taken office and his administration has tangled in federal courts over attempts to dismantle the federal government or longstanding constitutional precedent, threats against federal judges have spiked significantly.
The U.S. Marshal’s Service reported that already this year, roughly a third of the federal judiciary has been flooded with threats, and according to The New York Times, those threats noticeably spike as Trump lashes out at judges or the judiciary at large.
U.S. District Judge John Cougenhour of Washington state was swatted after he issued a ruling that upheld birthright citizenship. Police stormed his home after they received a false report that he had murdered his wife.
“Shortly after that, we received a message from the FBI that there was a bomb at our house. There wasn’t. What kind of people do these things? It’s just so disgusting, and it’s really unspeakable,” he said, adding that while he had “signed up for this” by being a judge, his wife and family had not.
Years ago, Cougenhour said when doing outreach for new judges in places like the former Soviet Union and eastern Asia, he recalled the “reverence” people in those places had for the independence of the American judiciary, the three branches of power and their co-equal operation.
Today, the judge said, “it’s just been stunning… 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.”
Whether it was the Nazis rise to power in 1930s Germany, or Pol Pot’s rise in 1970s Cambodia, or the struggles over power in places like Rwanda or the former Soviet Union, the judge said the common denominator in every place that loses democratic representation is the overt attack on the rule of law, independence and the rejection of court rulings by those in power.
“We need a call to action from our lawyers and our judges to say: not in our country. Not on our watch,” Cougenhour said.
U.S. District Judge Esther Salas of New Jersey has been very vocal on the subject since 2020 after a self-proclaimed “antifeminist” lawyer came to her home and shot her son, Daniel Anderl, to death. Her husband, Mark Anderl, was also shot during the attack. Her husband survived, and she was uninjured.
Daniel, Salas reflected through tears during Thursday’s panel, would have been 25 years old this month.
Since his murder, Salas has spoken publicly at length about the need for increased security for judges, and she has called on the president and lawmakers alike to dial back the inflammatory and unnecessary rhetoric.
“We need our political leaders to stop fanning these flames. Stop using irresponsible rhetoric. Stop referring to judges as corrupt, biased, monsters who hate America. We need leaders to lead responsibility. It’s a matter of using our words. We’re used to being appealed, but keep it on the merits, stop demonizing and villainizing us,” she said. “What they’re doing is inviting people to do us harm. They’re inviting [people] to call you because now they feel emboldened to use those words against you because our leaders are calling us (judges) idiots, deranged and monsters. We need civility. Appeal us to a higher court. But if you’re a leader, lead responsibly.”
Speak Up For Justice approached several judges, Salas said, appointed by Republican and Democrat presidents. Many did not want to come forward and share their personal stories. Those who did, she said, understand that the silence has to be broken if anything is to change.
The only reason to tell these very personal stories is to change the situation for the current and next generation, Salas and McConnell urged Thursday.
McConnell, who is fending off an impeachment bid launched by Stephen Miller’s group, America First Legal, said he is “unsure” if the public realizes how dire the situation is becoming for judges and how untenable it could be in the future if judges are unable to do their jobs without worrying that any ruling they make could could kick off a firestorm of baseless complaints, attacks, or worse.
Andrew La’Verne Edney, the former president of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), said Thursday that often people hear or read about attacks on the courts, and they don’t know what to do or how to help.
Edney said it starts with people talking about the rule of law and the nation’s system of government often and loudly.
Sometimes this feels like such a “little” thing to do when the problem is “so big,” she said.
“But we cannot give up. We’ve got to continue to educate people, talk about the rule of law, our system of government and the importance of the three branches of the government and the independence of the judiciary. We have to continue to advocate this, even to our children, this lesson on civics… that when there is a ruling someone doesn’t like, there’s a process.”
“Somewhere along the way we’ve lost the ability to be civil to each other,” she said.
But now is the time to take things back to the basics, and she said ABOTA is trying to get the word out to judges, lawyers and aspiring lawyers by going into classrooms and forums to remind them of their purpose and that there is “power in the masses.”
In the 18th century, before the American revolution, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik of Washington state said Thursday there was a powerful unitary executive under King George.
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King George wanted all colonial judges under his control, Lasnik said. He could remove them at will and decide how much salary they were paid, even.
Lasnik, who has not presided over any Trump administration cases this year specifically so he could speak up about the intimidation openly, said this was one of the reasons colonists felt they could not live under a monarch.
It would behoove the public to remember today that this notion was central to the Declaration of Independence, he said.