US District Judge John McConnell has spoken publicly about a sustained campaign of death threats and harassment against himself and his family following his decision to temporarily block a Trump administration freeze on federal funding, in an account reported by the Washington Post.
McConnell, an Obama appointee based in Rhode Island, said he has faced at least six threats considered credible since issuing the temporary block last year, according to the newspaper’s reporting. Among the disputed measures at issue was the suspension of trillions of dollars in federal funding.
Threats Against Federal Judges: What Was The Most Disturbing Threat McConnell Received?
Of the many hostile messages he has received, McConnell singled out one incident as especially unsettling: an unsolicited pizza delivered to his home, ordered under the name Daniel Anderl, the twenty-year-old son of New Jersey federal judge Esther Salas, who was shot dead in 2020 when a gunman posing as a delivery driver targeted the family’s residence. “I don’t think anything disturbed me as much as that did,” McConnell told the Washington Post.
Threats Against Federal Judges: How Did The Intimidation Extend To McConnell’s Family?
The judge said the harassment did not stop with him. The US Marshals Service informed McConnell that one death threat specifically mentioned his wife, while his daughter was drawn into the backlash after conservative activist Laura Loomer posted criticism of him online that included a photograph of his daughter and disclosed her personal details, a post that was subsequently reshared by Elon Musk, then leading the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. McConnell said he accepted that public criticism came with the job, telling the Post, “I signed up for whatever, I’ll take the lumps,” but that the involvement of his daughter affected him differently, saying it felt as though “someone put a dagger through my heart.”
McConnell’s office at the federal courthouse in Rhode Island also received hundreds of hostile emails and calls, including one caller who used abusive language while expressing hope that someone would assassinate the judge, a message McConnell said he preserved and played for the newspaper. He described the shift in tone as unusual, saying, “We’re just doing our job. What’s unusual is the dehumanization, the threats, the personalization of our doing our jobs.”
Threats Against Federal Judges: Are Supreme Court Justices Facing Similar Concerns?
McConnell’s account emerged alongside wider concern over judicial safety, after Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett appeared before Congress seeking additional security funding over threats against their lives. Kagan told lawmakers that rhetoric attacking judges over their rulings was “dangerous,” while Barrett, a Trump appointee, has faced public criticism from the president himself following decisions on tariff policy and birthright citizenship.
The White House rejected any suggestion that Trump’s public criticism of judges should be equated with threats against them. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson called that argument “deeply unserious,” adding that the president understood the dangers of political violence and that his administration took the safety of every member of the judiciary seriously.
