Judge says family 'freaking out' over death threats after Trump calls her 'lunatic'

A federal judge said her family was “freaking out” over media reports about death threats, hours after President Donald Trump called her a “crazed lunatic.”

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes made the remark Monday afternoon at a hearing in a lawsuit that seeks to stop Trump’s overhaul of East Potomac Golf Links, a public course in Washington, according to Inner City Press.

“The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane?” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after 6 a.m. that day, according to a court filing.

“I received a number of texts from my mother and my brother who are freaking out, that CNN is reporting I’m getting death threats,” Reyes said near the end of the hearing, Inner City Press reported. “If that’s what’s [happening], that a Federal judge is getting death threats over a golf course, I really don’t think that’s what the founders intended.”

During a Monday afternoon appearance on CNN, former federal judge John E. Jones III revealed that “Reyes had death threats last February, in a case involving immigration. This is serious stuff.”

“When a president of the United States lobs these kinds of … slogans and criticisms that are really beyond the pale on judges … you’re putting judges at risk when you do this,” Jones added.

Reyes' family had apparently reacted to the possibility of death threats after Jones revealed the judge received them in the earlier immigration case.

“The best way you can help America is to eat a bullet,” read one message Reyes received after she ruled in February to preserve legal protections for Haitian immigrants, Bloomberg Law reported. Reyes said the messages attacked her sexual orientation and her background as an immigrant, according to the outlet.

“It’s just a matter of course now that when you issue an opinion that some people don’t like, you’re going to get threats, you’re going to get death threats,” Reyes said at a panel of judges in March, according to the ABA Journal.

In September, Reyes also spoke from the bench about the anger and threats she had faced over the tree removal at East Potomac Golf Links, CNN reported.

During the hearing’s morning session, Reyes told an Interior Department official, “I won’t ask if you think I’m crazy, lunatic, or insane,” according to a live blog by Lawfare’s Roger Parloff.

Reyes rejected a Justice Department request to remove her from the case in a written order Sunday, two days after government lawyers accused her of bias in a court filing.

Moments after her remarks about the threats, Reyes told the courtroom, “We’re dismissed,” according to Inner City Press.