Garland Warns of ‘Disturbing Spike’ in Threats Against Officials

Attorney General Merrick Garland warned of a “deeply disturbing spike” in threats against public officials, including federal judges and members of Congress, even as homicide rates have dipped nationally.

Garland said in a speech Friday, focused on fighting violent crime, that in just the final few months of 2023, the Justice Department investigated and charged individuals for making violent threats against law enforcement agents, lawmakers and presidential candidates, and judges, including a Supreme Court justice.

Garland also said that several bomb threats had been raised against courthouses across the country this week alone, which federal and local law enforcement are “aggressively investigating.”

He described those incidents as “just a small snapshot of a larger trend that has included threats of violence against those who administer our elections, ensure our safe travel, teach our children, report the news, represent their constituents and keep our communities safe.”

“These threats of violence are unacceptable. They threaten the fabric of our democracy,” Garland said.

Garland made his remarks amid a spike in threats made against federal judges across the country, and one day before the third anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol by insurrectionists seeking to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

According to Garland, the Justice Department has charged over 1,250 individuals, resulting in more than 890 convictions, related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack.

The number of substantiated threats against federal judges climbed in recent years from 178 in 2019 to 311 in 2022, according to data obtained by Bloomberg Law from the US Marshals Service, the agency tasked with protecting judges, through a public records request.

In 2022, a California man was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly showed up to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home dressed in black and armed with a pistol. In December, a Florida man pleaded guilty to threatening to kill an unnamed Supreme Court justice, after prosecutors said he left a threatening voicemail.

Earlier this week alone, a man was arrested for breaking into the Colorado Supreme Court, firing a weapon, and holding a guard at gunpoint. Days later, video went viral of a defendant attacking a state court judge in Nevada.