'Roundhouse kick a judge': CO justices inundated with death threats following bombshell Trump ruling

21 December 2023

Many of Donald Trump's foes, from Justice Arthur Engoron to Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, have been bombarded with death threats from his hardcore supporters. The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, one of Trump's most vehement critics on the right, said he started carrying a gun for protection in response to all the threats he has received.

Now, according to NBC News reporter Ryan J. Reilly, justices on the Colorado Supreme Court are being bombarded with threats of violence following their 4-3 ruling that Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment bars him from being on the state ballot. Under Section 3, an "officer" who has engaged in "insurrection" cannot be elected to public office.

Reilly, in an article published on December 20, reports, "Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts public interest research, identified 'significant violent rhetoric' against the justices and Democrats, often in direct response to Trump's posts about the ruling on his platform Truth Social. They found that some social media users posted justices' e-mail addresses, phone numbers and office building addresses."

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Reilly quotes some specific comments that have been posted in pro-Trump forums and websites. One of them read, "This ends when we kill these f*****rs." And another read, "Kill judges. Behead judges. Roundhouse kick a judge into the concrete. Slam dunk a judge's baby into the trashcan."

Advance Democracy President Daniel J. Jones told NBC News, "We are seeing significant violent language and threats being made against the Colorado justices and others perceived to be behind yesterday's Colorado Supreme Court ruling. The normalization of this type of violent rhetoric — and lack of remedial action by social media entities — is cause for significant concern. Trump's statements, which have sought to delegitimize and politicize the actions of the courts, is serving as a key driver of the violent rhetoric."

Jones added, "Political leaders on both sides of the political aisle need to speak out against these calls for violence, and social media platforms need to reassess their role in hosting and promoting this rhetoric."

These threats against Colorado Supreme Court justices, according to Reilly, "fit into a predictable and familiar pattern, seen time and time again after legal developments against Trump."

"After the FBI searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida," Reilly notes, "a man who had been at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati with a nail gun while holding an AR-15-style rifle. When a grand jury in Georgia indicted Trump, some of his supporters posted the grand jurors' addresses online. When U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was assigned to special counsel Jack Smith's federal election interference case against Trump, she faced threats from Trump supporters."

Read NBC News' full report at this link.

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