Judges in Trump-related cases face unprecedented wave of threats
Judges and prosecutors are facing repeated threats of violence as they
handle cases related to Trump, interviews and documents reveal. The
wave of intimidation follows the ex-president's attacks on judges as
corrupt and biased - and some worry it threatens America's long
tradition of judicial independence.
...
...
...Since Trump launched his first presidential campaign in June 2015,
the average number of threats and hostile communications directed at
judges, federal prosecutors, judicial staff and court buildings has
more than tripled, according to the Reuters review of data from the
Marshals Service, which is responsible for protecting federal court
personnel.
The annual average rose from 1,180 incidents in the decade prior to
Trump's campaign to 3,810 in the seven years after he declared his
candidacy and began his practice of criticizing judges. In all, the
Marshals documented nearly 27,000 threatening and harassing
communications targeting federal courts from the fall of 2015 through
the fall of 2022, a volume they consider unprecedented in their
234-year history. There is no national data collection for threats
against state and local judges. Many states do not even track the
problem.
Since late 2020, Trump has ramped up his criticism of the judiciary dramatically, first amid his dozens of failed lawsuits seeking to
overturn his election loss and, more recently, amid a cascade of
criminal and civil litigation. In that time, serious threats against
federal judges alone have more than doubled, from 220 in 2020 to 457
in 2023, as Reuters reported on Feb. 13.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-judges-threats/
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