‘Not hyperbole’: Federal judges are worried for their safety as Trump ramps up attacks on judiciary

Pipe bomb threats. Scary and unwanted pizza deliveries. Menacing messages.

These are some of the threats federal judges have faced in recent weeks, adding to an already tense atmosphere as Donald Trump and his allies continue to attack officials who have ruled against certain points of the president’s agenda.

“I feel like people are playing Russian roulette with our lives,” said federal judge Esther Salas in an interview with The New York Times. Her 20-year-old son was shot dead in his home in 2020 by a disgruntled lawyer.

“This is not an exaggeration,” she told the newspaper. “I call on our leaders to realize that lives are at stake.”

These threats have affected judges and their families from across the political spectrum.

Earlier this month, an unidentified person claimed to have placed a pipe bomb at the home of Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in Charleston, South Carolina.

Families have also been targeted by unsolicited pizza deliveries, gestures that law enforcement considers warnings.

An anonymous federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against the Trump administration told the Times they received a similarly ominous pizza delivery.

“They know where you and your family live,” the judge said of the terrifying message such shipments send.

Another federal judge, John C. Coughenhour, who issued an order blocking the administration’s attempts to unilaterally revoke birthright citizenship, was the victim of a so-called “SWAT” attack, in which an anonymous informant called with a false threat about a gunman, sending a swarm of police officers to the judge’s home.

Meanwhile, additional security has been assigned to Judges Paul Engelmayer and Janet Vargas, who are overseeing the prosecution of Elon Musk’s DOGE program.

While federal judges have long faced violent threats—for example, in 2022, when a gunman broke into the home of Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh—some observers say the current political climate, with Trump, Musk, and their allies attacking any federal judge who rules against them as corrupt, has exacerbated the situation.

“I’ve never seen judges as worried as they are right now,” John Jones II, a former federal judge in Pennsylvania, told Reuters.

Musk has been a vocal supporter of calls for the removal of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the Trump administration to cancel a recent round of deportation flights to El Salvador as part of a challenge to the White House’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for expedited removal—a court order the administration ignored. (The government argued it was allowed to continue the flights because the initial warning was a verbal order and because the planes were in international airspace.)

In recent days, Musk has donated thousands of dollars to Republican members of Congress seeking Boasberg’s removal. He also retweeted a post by conservative activist Charlie Kirk describing federal judges like Boasberg as “dictators with gavels.” Additionally, the unelected White House counsel has called on Congress to remove the judges and “restore power to the people.”

For his part, Trump has sharply criticized Boisberg, describing him as a “crazy, troublemaking, firebrand, radical left-wing judge” and claiming the judge was trying to usurp the president’s authority in the deportation case.

The administration’s repeated demonization of Boisberg, along with its attempts to remove him from the case and calls for his removal, led to a rare public rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.

“For more than two centuries, it has been proven that impeachment is not an appropriate response to a dispute over a judicial decision. The normal appeals process exists for that purpose,” he said earlier this week.

Despite these attacks, the White House condemns threats against judges.

“The White House condemns any threat against any government official, even though we believe many of these individuals are left-wing, deranged judges who disrespect the Constitution,” a White House spokesperson said earlier this month. He added: “Just because these people are left-wing, deranged, and unconstitutional doesn’t mean they deserve to be harmed. That’s not how conflict is handled in this country.”

The Trump administration has sought to undermine the influence of the judiciary in other ways, including firing Justice Department officials who had worked on previous investigations of the president and revoking security privileges for law firms the president considers his political enemies.