Judge Dugan's arrest is only part of the intimidation campaign

MAGA has been sending chilling messages to judges following Trump's online attacks

By Sam Bellamy

Five weeks ago, Donald Trump ranted on Truth Social about a federal judge who’d ruled against the administration’s deportation flights to El Salvador, saying the judge should be impeached for interfering with his roundup of immigrants.

The screed drew a rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts but unleashed a barrage of threats and jeering messages from MAGA cultists on social media, including images of judges being led away in handcuffs.

Those images became a reality last week with the arrest of Hannah Dugan, a well-regarded Circuit Court judge in Milwaukee, on allegations that she tried to help an immigrant evade arrest by Immigrations and Custom Enforcement officers outside her courtroom.

Dugan’s arrest is both chilling and bizarre.

It’s chilling because FBI Director Kash Patel gleefully posted on X a “perp walk” photo of Dugan in handcuffs, being escorted to an awaiting car by law enforcement, with the caption, “No one is above the law.” The post may well have been in violation of Justice Department policy, but Patel is presumably above that.

A case like this could have been handled by asking Dugan to appear at a federal office to explain her side of the story or even to turn herself in. But Patel and crew quite obviously wanted to maximize the intimidation of other judges – sending a clear message that this could happen to them if they defy Trump on anything.

The arrest is bizarre because, in the government’s complaint, it’s stated that while Dugan did direct the immigrant and his lawyer to a side door, they were met in the elevator by a federal officer, who accompanied them on the ride down and notified his fellow officers.

No arrest was made by that officer, however. Apparently ICE agents really, really wanted a group photo.

The case against Dugan seems flimsy, but what matters most here is the message the Trump administration is sending. It’s an FAFO bulletin to the rule law.

Beyond this arrest – and a similar one last week involving a former New Mexico judge accused of harboring undocumented immigrants – there is a concerted campaign of intimidation against judges across the country that is horrifying in its intent, extent and execution.

In the brief video below, you’ll hear Judge Esther Salas of the U.S. District Court for New Jersey talk about a spate of pizza deliveries to the homes of judges and the homes of their adult family members.

The anonymous deliveries, which increased after Trump’s call for impeaching U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg last month, are intended to send a message – we know where you live and we can easily get to you.

Judge Salas knows all too well how easily. In 2020, a disgruntled right-wing lawyer who’d appeared in her courtroom rang the doorbell of her home posing as a FedEx delivery man, then shot and killed her 20-year-old son and shot and critically wounded her husband.

Pizza deliveries aren’t the only method of intimidation. A few months ago, the sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the target of a bomb threat at her home in Charleston, S.C. The threat in that case included a “Free Palestine!” message, but the justice herself has been targeted online by MAGA for her involvement in two rulings against the Trump administration, including one pertaining to deportation.

On the day of the threat against the justice’s sister, the U.S. Marshals Service in the Southern District of New York issued a bulletin about the fake pizza deliveries. Another popular form of intimidation among MAGA is to call law enforcement reporting an armed hostage situation at the address of a judge’s home, causing SWAT teams to descend on the scene.

In the video below, Salas talks about an especially unsettling detail of some of the pizza deliveries – the name of the sender is listed as Daniel Salas, her murdered son.

Appeals to MAGA’s decency won’t go far. Our best hope of preserving the rule of law resides in the courts themselves.

Democrats in Congress appear to be monitoring the situation and do, at times, speak out. But they need to increase the volume and add Trump’s threats and orchestrated attacks on judges to the long list of impeachable offenses.

In the meantime, as Salas says, every state should pass the equivalent of “Daniel’s Law,” removing personal information about judges, including addresses, from easy public access. It’s a matter of course in many states already – encompassing numerous court officials vulnerable to attack – and it should be routine everywhere.

Judges are vital to protecting our nation’s Constitution, and our nation must protect them.