Judges overseeing Trump lawsuits raise red flags over new 'unsettling' intimidation tactic

Judges who are being tasked with ruling on the flood of lawsuits filed against Donald Trump's administration are finding themselves on the receiving end of a new intimidation tactic designed to remind them that critics know where they and members of their family live.

According to a report from the Washington Post, judges have reached out to the Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals Service after receiving unsolicited pizzas delivered at their places of residence which began in February and have continued to increase since then.

As the Post's Derek Hawkins wrote, "The U.S. Marshals Service has been tracking the deliveries, and judges have been sharing details about their experiences in hopes of finding out more about what they call an ongoing attempt at intimidating the judiciary."

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Noting that the deliveries have also gone to the judges' family members too, the report adds, "The Marshals Service declined to discuss the deliveries in detail, including the number of deliveries that judges have reported or how many judges have been targeted."

According to D.C. U.S. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, she has been the recipient of seven pizzas since she ruled against the Trump administration over the firing of a government watchdog.

As she told the Post, “It’s unsettling because I’d like to go to work every day, even with the hardest case, just feeling like there’s no sense of intimidation,” adding, “It’s really an unnecessary and an unfortunate threat to our security when we’re trying to be judicial officers in a very neutral position with respect to our cases. You need a strong judiciary for the system to work. This is infringing on democracy generally.”

According to Childs, she and her husband have been forced to take extra precautions when answering the door, telling the Post, "We’ve been asking questions, not opening the door, just looking through the Ring [camera]. Each time, we learn a little bit more.”

The Post's Hawkins noted, "The deliveries to Childs and others share some characteristics with swatting, the popular and dangerous form of harassment in which law enforcement officers are called to respond to a fake crime at a person’s homeas a hoax.Judges, administration officials and other public figures have been targeted with swatting in recent years. Authorities in many swatting cases have struggled to track down the callers, who use various technologies to hide their identities."

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