Federal judges say they’re worried about increased threats to members of the judiciary since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, a trend some say is fueled by politically charged cases, online harassment and personal attacks from the president and his allies.
U.S. District Judge Esther Salas — whose son was killed at the family’s home in July 2020 by a gunman targeting her — said she is now even more concerned about judicial safety than she was after his murder.
“Things have gotten so much more dangerous,” Salas said in an interview with POLITICO. “I think we are headed in the wrong direction. And if I could ever be more concerned than I was after my only child was murdered, I am.”
Judge Beth Bloom, who has spent more than three decades on the state and federal benches in Florida, told POLITICO the way the danger presents itself has changed dramatically. Threats that once arrived through letters to chambers or protests outside courthouses can now be amplified online at breaking speed, exposing judges and their families to the wrath of people located far away.
After Bloom ruled in a case in 2021, she said, her home address was posted online, and she received threats to rape and kill her, prompting the U.S. Marshals Service to provide around-the-clock protection. Bloom and her husband then had to warn their daughter, who was still living at home, that people knew where they lived.
“It was a hard conversation to let her know that there have been threats, and people know where we live, and to be careful,” Bloom said. “That’s not a conversation that I thought I would have to have when I first came on the bench.”
“We sign up for it,” she added, referring to public scrutiny. “But our families don’t.”
Bloom’s experience predates Trump’s second term, underscoring what retired U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller described as a longstanding problem that may now have reached a new level of intensity.
“Do I think we’ve reached a fever pitch? Perhaps,” Mueller told POLITICO. “But it’s not a new issue, and it’s not a partisan one.”
Salas, Bloom and Mueller are three of several judges — 35 total, with 17 serving on the bench at the time — whose stories were featured in a report by the Brennan Center for Justice. Every judge told the report’s authors that threats are more serious today than in the past, with several identifying Trump’s return to office as a turning point. One sitting judge said threats had “exponentially exploded” during Trump’s second term, per the report.
The numbers seem to bear out what the judges are saying. There’s been a spike in threats against federal judges, who’ve faced a 57 percent increase in “security incidents of significant concern” in fiscal year 2025, according to the judiciary's fiscal year 2027 discretionary budget. The U.S. Marshals Service has reported a total of 601 investigations and 425 threats to judges year-to-date as of Sept. 1.
Federal judges have traditionally been reluctant to speak beyond their rulings, but Bloom said more judges are deciding that they can no longer remain silent as colleagues face personal attacks and calls for impeachment, citing Ethics Opinion 118, which permits judges, in measured terms, to defend judicial independence and colleagues who have been attacked.
“More and more judges are realizing, number one, that they can speak outside of their opinions,” Bloom said. “Many of us are coming forward not only to educate the public, but also in defense of our colleagues.”
The White House argued the president has the right to speak out, too, with a spokesperson defending Trump’s right to “debate political ideas and criticize court rulings” he doesn’t agree with.
“To be clear, criticizing a judge’s ruling does not equate to calling for violence. In this country, we have a right to debate political ideas and criticize court rulings we do not agree with. Judges are not immune from criticism,” White House senior deputy press secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement to POLITICO, adding “the reality is, with well over 25 Supreme Court victories, the Administration’s policies have been consistently upheld as lawful, despite some lower courts issuing an unprecedented number of lawless injunctions.”
Bloom stressed that judges do not select the politically charged disputes that come before them. Cases are assigned through the courts’ filing systems, and judges are obligated to decide them regardless of the political consequences.
“Judges [do] not handpick cases,” Bloom told POLITICO. “We decide the cases that are blind-filed and assigned to us.”
Whether the case involves immigration enforcement, an executive order or the constitutionality of a statute, Bloom said, “it’s our responsibility to address the issues based on the facts and the law.”
Many judges also identified rhetoric from Trump and his allies, including Stephen Miller and Elon Musk, as contributing to the hostile environment. Since beginning his second term, Trump has described judges who ruled against his administration as “Crooked,” “MONSTERS,” and “USA HATING” while calling for judges to be impeached, as noted in a separate report published Monday by the Berkeley Judicial Institute and New York University School of Law’s Rule of Law Lab. Similar rhetoric has been employed by Musk, Miller and others.
Salas and several other judges also pointed to a July social media post from the Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival listing four judges who had ruled against the administration on immigration matters, a series he called “Worst of the Worst District Judge Edition.”
“When you have a sitting president call judges monsters, when you have a sitting president accusing judges of being rogue, corrupt and hating America,” Salas said, “when have we ever seen such behavior from our political leaders in this country?”
Asked about Salas’ statement, DHS pointed POLITICO to a tweet from Percival. “Many people are reaching out demanding I stop tweeting about judicial activism,” Percival wrote. “The tweets will continue until the activism stops. And the whining will only make me tweet harder!”
Though Salas and many judges focused on the amplified rhetoric since the start of Trump’s second term, some also cited concerning statements from other political leaders, including remarks by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at a 2020 abortion rights rally outside the Supreme Court, where Schumer appeared to threaten Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch as the high court heard arguments on its first abortion-rights case of the Trump era. Schumer, a Democrat, walked back his comments after a sharp rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.
“This is not a partisan issue. It’s a reflection of our times,” Mueller said, arguing the problem is “fed by our social media environment.”
Meanwhile, Salas described the rhetoric from politicians as “throwing an accelerant on an already out-of-control wildfire.”
“These kinds of tactics, this personalizing and villainizing judges for the rulings they’re making instead of disagreeing with them on the merits and appealing them. This is, for me, what is setting a tone right now of intolerance in this country,” Salas said.
The judges said addressing the problem will require more than physical protection at courthouses. Many judges are calling for adequate judicial-security funding and stronger safeguards preventing judges’ home addresses and other identifying information from appearing in state and local databases.
“One of the issues both [the Brennan and Berkeley-NYU] reports call out is the need for better funding, secure funding, protected funding for the marshals to keep doing that job, particularly for the lower courts,” Mueller said.
The threat environment has also produced new forms of intimidation. Salas told the Berkeley-NYU researchers in July that there had been close to 200 “pizza-doxing” incidents, in which anonymous deliveries were sent to judges’ homes to show that the sender knew their addresses. At least 20 cases used the name of Salas’ son, Daniel Anderl.
Salas told POLITICO she felt “incredible sadness and outrage” when she learned that her son’s name had been attached to one of the attempted pizza deliveries to a fellow judge.
The judges interviewed for the reports emphasized that the threats had not changed how they decided cases, yet several warned that the continued harassment could undermine judicial independence in the long term. Salas said the long-term consequences could include qualified candidates declining traditionally highly sought-after judicial nominations, sitting judges retiring earlier and judges weighing the safety of their families when confronting legal questions.
“I’m not saying they won’t rule in accordance with the law,” she told POLITICO. “But I am saying that I don’t think it’s justice when we have judges think about anything other than the facts and the law.”
“We are in uncharted waters,” Salas added, noting that the damage to judicial independence could “take years to recover from.”
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