‘It’s just so disgusting’: Judges in WA detail threats after Trump-related rulings

After Judge John Coughenour ruled against the Trump administration, local authorities received a false report that he’d killed his wife.

Police showed up to his home with guns drawn in what is known as a “swatting” incident. Not long after, the FBI was told a bomb was at his family’s home. That wasn’t true, either.

Coughenour, a U.S. District Court judge in Seattle, shared those experiences during a public forum last week. The incidents are emblematic of the ways judges have increasingly come under attack in the Trump era, as they often block his controversial policies.

In the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term, Coughenour, who was appointed to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan, had called Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship “blatantly unconstitutional.” He was the first judge in the nation to rule against a Trump policy this year.

Other federal judges joined Coughenour in speaking out at last week’s event. They described attacks on the rule of law as the Trump administration has flouted some court rulings and the president has criticized judges by name.

Judges don’t often publicly discuss issues that could be perceived as partisan out of fear of showing bias.

“I signed up for this and I’ll endure the threats and attempts to intimidate, but my family didn’t,” Coughenour said. “What kind of people do these things? It’s just so disgusting.”

The nonpartisan judicial advocacy organization Speak Up for Justice organized the panel discussion. Such threats against federal judges have been on the rise for years, but have accelerated in the months since Trump retook office.

A Rhode Island judge shared a voicemail his office received calling for his assassination. Others said the killing of a judge’s son in New Jersey by a disgruntled lawyer had been invoked to intimidate other judges across the country.

Judge Robert Lasnik, who President Bill Clinton appointed to the federal bench in Seattle, said he was one of the many who received an unsolicited pizza delivery mentioning Daniel Anderl, who was murdered in 2020 and is the son of Judge Esther Salas. Two of Lasnik’s adult children also got similar suspicious pizza deliveries to their homes.

The harassment came after he spoke about Trump’s rhetoric on the judiciary with KUOW, a local NPR affiliate in Seattle.

The message Lasnik said he took from this was “we know where you live, we know where your children live, and they could end up dead, like Judge Salas’s son.”

As a senior judge, Lasnik opted out of cases involving the Trump administration so he could feel free to speak about attacks on the rule of law.

“I saw it from my colleagues, some of whom have only been on the bench for two or three years,” he added. “They would make a ruling, they would be bombarded with hate mail and hate emails and threats. And it’s so discouraging to a young judge to suddenly not only worry about, how do I do this job right, but how do I keep my family safe?”

The Trump administration’s moves to block gender-affirming care for transgender youth, withhold federal funding and bar refugees are among the issues that have ended up before judges in Washington state.

Coughenour recalled helping Russian judges to develop an independent judiciary after the fall of the Soviet Union. Those judges looked at the U.S. justice system with reverence. That reputation has now been damaged, he said.

He reminded the audience that attacks on the rule of law and judicial independence preceded the rise to power for Nazis in 1930s Germany and Pol Pot in 1970s Cambodia. He said the United States needs a call to action: “Not in this country. Not on our watch.”

This story was originally published in the Washington State Standard.