{"id":129212,"date":"2025-08-01T11:37:48","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/01\/federal-judge-discloses-death-threats-harassment-amid-toxic-rhetoric-from-trump-administration\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T11:37:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:37:48","slug":"federal-judge-discloses-death-threats-harassment-amid-toxic-rhetoric-from-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/01\/federal-judge-discloses-death-threats-harassment-amid-toxic-rhetoric-from-trump-administration\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Discloses Death Threats, Harassment Amid Toxic Rhetoric From Trump Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been on the bench almost 15 years, and I must say it\u2019s the one time that actually shook my faith in the judicial system and the rule of law.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to be here. It took me a long time. I\u2019ve never spoken about what\u2019s happened to me personally, because I\u2019m not looking for pity. I\u2019m not looking for sympathy. I want to be able to just do my job again.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr.<\/a>\u00a0of the District of Rhode Island, in comments given<\/a> during a recent webinar hosted by Speak Up for Justice<\/a>, where he spoke of receiving an angry voicemail where the caller said he hoped someone would assassinate the judge. The angry voicemail was one of more than 400 he\u2019d received after making a ruling against the Trump administration. McConnell has since received six credible death threats. \u201cI don\u2019t know that the public understands how the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary is so violently under attack like I\u2019m not sure we\u2019ve ever seen in this country,\u201d he said. Without specifically mentioning Trump, judges who spoke at the event encouraged U.S. leaders to stop \u201cdemonizing\u201d the judiciary.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Federal Judge Discloses Death Threats, Harassment Amid Toxic Rhetoric From Trump Administration<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been on the bench almost 15 years, and I must say it\u2019s the one time that actually shook my faith in the judicial system and the rule of law.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to be here. It took me a long time. I\u2019ve never spoken about what\u2019s happened to me personally, because I\u2019m not looking for pity. I\u2019m not looking for sympathy. I want to be able to just do my job again.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr.<\/a>\u00a0of the District of Rhode Island, in comments given<\/a> during a recent webinar hosted by Speak Up for Justice<\/a>, where he spoke of receiving an angry voicemail where the caller said he hoped someone would assassinate the judge. The angry voicemail was one of more than 400 he\u2019d received after making a ruling against the Trump administration. McConnell has since received six credible death threats. \u201cI don\u2019t know that the public understands how the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary is so violently under attack like I\u2019m not sure we\u2019ve ever seen in this country,\u201d he said. Without specifically mentioning Trump, judges who spoke at the event encouraged U.S. leaders to stop \u201cdemonizing\u201d the judiciary.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Federal Judge Discloses Death Threats, Harassment Amid Toxic Rhetoric From Trump Administration<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. I\u2019ve been on the bench almost 15 years, and I must say it\u2019s the one time that actually shook my faith in the judicial system and the rule of law. I didn\u2019t want to be here. It took me a long time. I\u2019ve never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":129192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Staci-Zaretsky-VePZFE.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}