The violent political threats public officials are facing amid Trump’s legal woes

 

LEGAL

The violent political threats public officials are facing amid Trump’s legal woes

 

Trump’s many legal problems have intensified — and so have the threats to prosecutors, judges and other public officials involved in his cases.

 

By KIERRA FRAZIER

01/12/2024 10:29 AM EST

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/12/trump-legal-public-official-threats-00135084

 

After Donald Trump was indicted last year for his alleged role in a scheme to pay hush money to a porn star, the threats toward the lead prosecutor in the case started coming in.

 

A letter containing death threats and white powder was addressed to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

 

In the months that followed, Trump’s many legal problems intensified — and so did the threats to the prosecutors, judges and other public officials involved in his cases. Some have been besieged by racist messages or death threats. Others have been targeted by “swatting” calls.

 

Last month, the Justice Department reported an “unprecedented rise” in threats to public officials in general. But with regard to the former president’s legal problems, the most serious and pervasive threats seem to be against figures whom Trump constantly vilifies on social media.

 

Arthur Engoron and court staff

Just hours before closing arguments in Trump’s civil fraud trial Thursday, police arrived at the home of the judge presiding over the case to investigate a swatting incident, episodes in which false calls are placed to 911 to trigger massive police responses.

 

The threat was aimed at Justice Arthur Engoron’s house on Long Island but the incident was “deemed unfounded,” the police said.

 

The night before the incident at Engoron’s home, Trump described Engoron as a “TRUMP HATING JUDGE” on Truth Social after Engoron nixed Trump’s plan to make his closing argument on Thursday.

 

Engoron, along with his court staff, have received numerous threatening messages from Trump supporters while the civil fraud trial in New York has taken place.

 

Engoron issued a gag order on Oct. 3 after Trump shared on social media a photo of the judge’s law clerk, which resulted in threats made by Trump supporters to the court.

 

Court staff since have received “hundreds of threatening, harassing, and antisemitic messages” that “reflect an ongoing security risk for the judge, his staff and his family,” said Charles Hollon of New York’s Judicial Threats Assessment Unit. Hollon said the number of threats increased after Trump made personal attacks on the court’s staff.

 

Tanya Chutkan

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal prosecution in Washington, D.C., on charges of election interference, on Sunday was the target of a swatting call.

 

Chutkan has also received heightened protection after Trump was indicted and she was assigned the case.

 

Last August, a Texas woman was charged after calling the federal courthouse in D.C. and leaving a message using a racist term for Chutkan and threatening to kill her.

 

Trump last year, prior to the arrest of the Texas woman, slammed Chutkan on Truth Social, calling her “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair.”

 

Shenna Bellows

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said late last month that her home was swatted after Bellows found Trump to be ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 primary ballot.

 

Trump had attacked the decision to remove him from the ballot and posted a link to Bellows’ biographical information on his Truth Social account. In a following post, he wrote: “Fisherman, Loggers, & Lobsterman, who voted for President Trump overwhelmingly, are furious with this non-Lawyer Sec. of State.”

 

The Maine Department of Public Safety did not give a motive for the swatting but Bellows told The Associated Press that it stemmed from her decision to remove Trump from the ballot.

 

Colorado Supreme Court justices

Also last month, the FBI worked with local law enforcement officials after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump was disqualified from appearing on the state ballot due to the so-called insurrection clause of the Constitution.

 

Denver police responded to a justice’s home but it turned out to be a “hoax report,” CNN reported. There have also been more violent threats from users on social media, CBS News reported, including for justices to be killed by gunfire, hanging or bombs.

 

Jack Smith and his team

Special counsel Jack Smith’s staff have also received threats as Smith is overseeing two federal criminal cases against Trump.

 

Security costs for Smith have risen in recent months with $4.4 million going toward the U.S. Marshals Service, which provides security for Smith and his team. The Justice Department spent more than $14.6 million between April and September of last year on Smith’s work.

 

In August, a person was arrested for calling the court’s chambers and making racist death threats to the court, according to court filings.

 

Smith is overseeing the Washington case against Trump that charged the former president with seeking to undermine the 2020 election and one in Florida where he was charged with hoarding classified documents after he left the White House.

 

Smith himself was targeted with a swatting call at his home in Maryland on Christmas. On Christmas Eve, Trump posted on Truth Social calling Smith one of Biden’s “misfits and thugs.”

 

Fani Willis

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing the case that charged Trump with conspiring to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia, said in October she has received 150 personal threats since Trump was indicted.

 

In that same month, an Alabama man was charged with leaving voicemails to Willis in which he made violent threats to physically harm her.

 

After Trump was indicted in the Georgia case, the former president called Willis a “rabid partisan.” Trump has also repeatedly called Willis “racist” online and that Willis is using the indictment as a “con Job.”

 

Tish James

Attorney General Tish James said in June she had received death threats as she is pursuing the New York civil fraud case against Trump.

 

“I have more law enforcement around me these days, individuals have threatened my life, but I will not be paralyzed by fear by no means. I’m from Brooklyn,” James said at the time.

 

Trump has often attacked James on social media for investigating Trump as soon as she took office in 2019. Just last week, Trump called James “ HIGHLY POLITICAL & TOTALLY CORRUPT” in a Truth Social tirade.

 

Alvin Bragg

Alvin Bragg, who brought the case accusing Trump of falsifying business records in connection with a payoff to Stormy Daniels, received threatening letters and white powder after Trump was indicted in March.

 

Bragg has also been at the center of many of Trump’s attacks — both online and in public speeches. Before Trump was indicted, he called Bragg an “animal” who was backed by megadonor George Soros. Trump also said that if he were indicted, there would be “ potential death and destruction.”

 

Aileen Cannon

Though the vast majority of the threats have targeted Trump’s perceived legal adversaries, not all of them fit that category. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — who was nominated by Trump in 2020 and confirmed about two weeks after he lost his bid for reelection — is presiding over Trump’s classified documents case. She has issued favorable rulings for Trump and has not received backlash from Trump on social media. Last summer, Trump told Fox News that Cannon was “a very highly respected judge, a very smart judge, and a very strong judge.”

 

But she, too, has been targeted. Cannon was threatened with voicemails from a Houston woman last year who was arrested and charged.

 

Prosecutors said the woman threatened Cannon through voicemails left with her chambers in Florida. The woman claimed she had ordered a team of snipers and a bomb to be sent to Cannon’s house and that she was going to kill Cannon in front of the judge’s children.

 

FILED UNDER: CLASSIFIED INFORMATION, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT,