Before closing arguments were set to begin in Trump’s civil fraud case, someone called in a bomb threat at the home of the judge presiding over the case.
Hours before closing arguments were set to begin in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud case on Thursday, someone called in a bomb threat at the home of the judge presiding over the case, Judge Arthur Engoron. That came just days after Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s election interference case, was targeted in a “swatting” call, which is when police are dispatched to a home based on a false report of a shooting or threatening situation. And that incident came two weeks after special counsel Jack Smith, who filed the election interference indictment against Trump, was swatted as well.
These incidents, all of which targeted officials who Trump has slammed on social media, threaten the proper functioning of the legal system in alarming ways. And these incidents are just the latest examples of a new surge of threats and intimidation tactics directed at politicians and judges, many of whom are Trump critics. Trump recently threatened that there will be “bedlam in the country” if criminal charges cause him to lose the presidential election. The targeting of Trump’s designated enemies are signs of it bubbling up already.
A recent report details the uptick in threats, which have been directed at members of Congress, state officials, judges and local leaders in recent weeks. Rusty Bowers, the former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives who resisted Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, was swatted in December. The Maine secretary of state and the Colorado Supreme Court have received a deluge of threats after determining that Trump was ineligible to run for president in their states.
