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Federal #judges who have ruled against the #Trump admin this year are confronting a wave of threats, compromising their safety & the #independence of the #judiciary.
The sister of #SCOTUS Justice #AmyConeyBarrett received a bomb threat earlier this month, & lower court judges who paused some of Trump's efforts to dismantle #FederalAgencies & programs have been targeted.
#law #StochasticTerrorism #StateSponsoredTerrorism #DomesticTerrorism #PoliticalViolence #MAGA
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5316340/threats-judges-trump
Congressional #Republicans close to the president even have proposed #impeachment proceedings against a few of those judges, who serve for life.
#ElonMusk, who oversees #DOGE making cuts to federal agencies, himself has repeatedly posted on social media about impeaching #judges who delay or block parts of #Trump's agenda.
Efforts to undermine the #judiciary come at the same time the #Trump admin has moved to fire lawyers inside the #DOJ & the #Pentagon, penalize private law firms who represented clients Trump does not like, & to back away from participation in the activities of the #ABA.
Judge Richard Sullivan, of the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, said in his lifetime 4 federal judges have been killed in retaliation for their work on the bench.
"This is not hypothetical," Sullivan, who leads a Judicial Conference panel on #security issues, told reporters in a news conference this week. The Judicial Conference is a body of federal judges that frames policies for courts. "It's real. It's happened before. We have to be certain that it doesn't happen again.”
"The more that people like #ElonMusk are putting on the wall the idea that it's appropriate to attack these judges for nothing more than ruling against the federal government, the more that we're normalizing what really are in the main very serious threats to #JudicialIndependence," Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, said.
Paul Grimm, who spent 26yrs as a federal judge, said even the threat of impeachment can amount to #intimidation.
"If you try to intimidate judges, if that's your goal, so that they do not do their constitutional duty, then you jeopardize the rule of #law. And w/o the rule of law, every liberty & every right that we cherish as Americans is vulnerable,” said Grimm, who leads the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School.
Grimm said he worries a lot about posts that dox judges & their children…
"A judge's #security is dependent in many ways on the Marshals Service who the president appoints to protect the judges, & if a president doesn't like a decision that's coming from a judge, *theoretically* they could pull their security," Rep. Eric Swalwell (S-CA) said at a congressional hearing this month.
#Trump has already yanked protection this year from fmr military & #NationalSecurity ofcls who disagreed w/Trump.