Courts

Judges Face Death Threats After Kicking Trump Off The Ballot

Not surprising, still horrific.

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trump 14th amendment Participant seen holding a sign outside Trump Tower. Members

(Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Say what you will about Trump supporters, but they aren’t known for their measured response to adversity. I mean, their calling card is storming the gd Capitol. And when Donald Trump loses in court, well, death threats are shockingly common.

So, yeah, after the Colorado Supreme Court kicked Donald Trump off of the Republican primary ballot for a little matter of insurrection, threats against the justices have come rolling in.

As reported by NBC News:

Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts public interest research, identified “significant violent rhetoric” against the justices and Democrats, often in direct response to Trump’s posts about the ruling on his platform Truth Social. They found that some social media users posted justices’ email addresses, phone numbers and office building addresses.

And while horrific, the violent rhetoric is not particularly original:

“This ends when we kill these f–kers,” a user wrote on a pro-Trump forum that was used by several Jan. 6 rioters.

“What do you call 7 justices from the Colorado Supreme Court at the bottom of the ocean?” asked another user. “A good start.”

Posts — whose images and links were included in the report — noted a variety of methods that could be used to kill those perceived as Trump’s enemies: hollow-point bullets, rifles, rope, bombs.

“Kill judges. Behead judges. Roundhouse kick a judge into the concrete,” read a post on a fringe website. “Slam dunk a judge’s baby into the trashcan.”

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Daniel J. Jones, president of Advance Democracy, catalogued some of what they’re seeing post-decision:

“We are seeing significant violent language and threats being made against the Colorado justices and others perceived to be behind yesterday’s Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” Jones, a former FBI investigator and staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NBC News in a statement.

“The normalization of this type of violent rhetoric — and lack of remedial action by social media entities — is cause for significant concern,” he said. “Trump’s statements, which have sought to delegitimize and politicize the actions of the courts, is serving as a key driver of the violent rhetoric. Political leaders on both sides of the political aisle need to speak out against these calls for violence, and social media platforms need to reassess their role in hosting and promoting this rhetoric.”

What an awful sign of our times that threats against our nation’s jurists are considered commonplace.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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