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.”

Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com.

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith has been around in Washington state politics a long time.

A moderate Democrat, he’s been in Congress since 1997, and before that, served in the state Legislature. His 9th Congressional District stretches from parts of Bellevue and south Seattle down to Federal Way and Auburn.

Smith covered many topics in an interview this month with the Standard at a Bellevue Starbucks.

But as the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, he’s one of his party’s lead thinkers in Congress on national security issues and spoke at length on that topic and overseas conflicts in the Trump era — from his tepid optimism for peace in the Middle East and his one meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Looking toward next year’s midterms, Smith faces a challenge from socialist candidate Kshama Sawant, a former Seattle City Council member, who has sharply criticized the congressman’s alignment with U.S. policy supporting Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Reflecting broadly on President Donald Trump’s second term so far, Smith did not have much positive to say. “They are the most insular, the most partisan administration that I’ve ever dealt with,” he said. “It’s not just partisan, it’s authoritarian.”

The following interview was edited for clarity and length.

Let’s start in the Middle East. What do you think we’ll most likely see there in the next couple of years?

The most positive thing that’s happened in the last 20 years is the evolution of Saudi Arabia and the [United Arab Emirates] in terms of dealing with extremism.

Prior to 9/11, Saudi Arabia was the foremost exporter of radical extremism, and now they are combating it, and the UAE is as well, because their focus is on stability.

They need stability in the region because people aren’t going to do business if buildings are getting blown up and suicide bombers are showing up all the time.

With Hezbollah weakened, with [former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad] gone, there’s the chance that Lebanon and Syria could become stable countries.

They could focus on governing instead of jihad grievances against Israel. But for that to happen, Israel needs to make peace with the Palestinians. So that’s the great unknown.

What’s Iran going to do? I don’t know, but the region is going to be in a lot better position to unify and put pressure on Iran if we can end the war in Gaza, and if there could be some kind of future for the Palestinian people that involves some element of self-governance.

That’s the real test: Can we get Israel into that type of agreement? That’s what Trump’s trying to do right now. God bless him. I hope he succeeds.

If that goes sideways, then terrorist groups motivated by Israel could become a factor in Syria. They could have militia groups in Iraq that are aligned with Iran, and then these and others destabilize the government in Iraq.

So that’s the big challenge, and as far as how that is going to play out, I don’t know, but it’s going to require a considerable amount of diplomatic skill.

You strongly condemned the U.S. strikes in Iran. With a few weeks’ hindsight, has that feeling evolved at all?

No, it was a mistake. I don’t think it was the right policy. I don’t think it was the right approach.

It seems, for the moment, the risks did not bear out as much as it could have. Sort of like, you drive home drunk and you don’t hit anyone. The lesson from that isn’t that driving home drunk is not a problem.

The bad downside consequences have not yet manifested as greatly as they could have. Iran very easily could have chosen to launch a more aggressive attack. Iran still has the capacity to build nuclear weapons.

You can make a pretty compelling argument that, after being attacked by Israel and attacked by us, it sort of pushes the scale toward, well, ‘Let’s build a damn thing so we can have an adequate deterrent,’ because the deterrent that Iran thought they had clearly was not sufficient.

Are you at all optimistic that a diplomatic solution is a possibility in any kind of near future?

It is a possibility. Optimism is fine, but you’ve got to do the work. If the players in the region and if the U.S. choose to play a constructive role, it’s a possibility.

Have you always felt it’s a possibility over the past two years?

Not really. The big changes, and Israel deserves credit for this: Assad’s gone, Hezbollah is weakened and so is Iran. That is a fundamental shift that I will confess I did not see coming. It creates a greater possibility that we’ll get to a more peaceful outcome, but it’s still a region rife with conflict.

Moving to Ukraine. The U.S. paused military shipments. The president didn’t seem to know and didn’t agree. The situation has evolved. What does that tell you?

Have you seen the movie “Die Hard?”

Yes.

You know the point in the movie when the guy goes in and tries to cut the deal with the terrorist. “I do billion-dollar deals every day. I can handle this guy. Bunch of Eurotrash.” I think that’s the way Trump felt about Putin. “Come on, I’m Trump, I can cut a deal with this guy.”

I think now Trump’s like, “Oh, f---, maybe not.”

And in this case, Trump’s not going to get shot in the head by Putin, but I think he’s beginning to wake up to the fact that, no, he is not someone who Trump’s magnetic personality is just going to magically melt.

On the Armed Services Committee, we are attempting, and this is a very bipartisan thing — Mike Rogers, who’s the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He and I are talking and like, “How do we get Trump to make the right call?” A lot of bipartisan support in Congress for this, but it’s just where is the support in the Trump administration? [Vice President] JD Vance is not going to be helpful. [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio could be. [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth, I don’t think he thinks that sophisticatedly.

So it’s really going to come down to what Trump wants.

He assumed that he could bully Ukraine into cutting a deal, then get a peace agreement that he can take credit for, which showed a fundamental misunderstanding of what was going on.

Russia will take every last inch of Ukraine that they can get away with. The only way to get to peace is to make it clear that they can’t. We actually had some success in that, because the Ukrainians have proved far more tenacious than anyone would have expected, and because the Biden administration put together a 53-nation coalition that helped Ukraine defend itself, that has really driven up the cost substantially for Putin continuing this war.

Have you had any meetings with Hegseth?

I had one conversation [with Hegseth] when Mike Rogers and I were on the phone with him. We had one meeting with what they like to refer to as the Big Eight senators and House members, where Hegseth was at. Then, of course, I ripped into him the one time he testified before us.

It’s not just partisan, it’s authoritarian. They don’t want to deal with Congress. In fact, they don’t talk to the Republicans that much.

Has that been surprising? Were you expecting six months in to be saying it’s more authoritarian than partisan?

It’s not surprising. January 6 happened. It was a failure of imagination, not a failure of will, that stopped [Trump] from overthrowing our Constitution and trying to hold on to the White House.

Trump said what he was going to do. Dictator day one. We should be clear about the fact that Trump is attempting an authoritarian takeover of our government.

Do you feel like you and your colleagues have any power to do anything?

Absolutely. I’m a believer in: “There’s always a way.”

He has done things that are manifestly unpopular, and the power that we have is to make that argument.

Three-step process. One, go after the authoritarian stuff.

Two, go after the way his policies are negatively impacting people.

Third thing is we’ve got to show them an alternative. Democrats got a ton of work to do in that area.

Sadly, we’re locked in a bit of an ideological struggle. Too many people on the left want to prove that the activist left has never been wrong about anything. And you have too many people in the center who want to prove that centrists have never been wrong about anything, and not enough people are just trying to figure out how we all collectively get better so that we can govern better and win elections.

We’re still stuck in that past of wanting to make sure everything’s pre-curated, as opposed to being authentic.

Do you see your own election next year as any sort of microcosm of this debate?

I am downright excited about it because it offers the contrast that I want to offer.

Do you want to sign up for some utopian revolution to tear down everything in society in the hope that some magical left-wing utopia will emerge from it? Or do you want to get to work in the way that true progressives do?

I think Kshama Sawant is a very smart, articulate person. It will be a fair fight from a pure talent standpoint.

Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com.

Washington’s Tumwater School District faces a federal investigation from the Trump administration over allowing a transgender athlete from an opposing team to compete in a girls’ high school basketball game last month.

The U.S. Department of Education announced the Title IX investigation Monday, after a conservative organization filed a complaint on behalf of a 15-year-old student from Tumwater, near Olympia. The girl sat out a Feb. 6 game “for fear of her safety” because a player from Shelton High School was trans, according to the department.

She alleges the school district knew Shelton had a trans athlete ahead of time, and still let her play. Her complaint says she now faces a district investigation for misgendering the Shelton player. She argues this amounts to sex discrimination.

A second Tumwater player also sat out the game, according to The Olympian.

In response, the Tumwater school board voted last week in favor of a resolution to ban trans girls from competing in girls’ sports. After the vote, community members interrupted the meeting in protest, The Olympian reported. A petition to recall the three board members who supported the resolution gathered over 500 signatures, as of Monday morning.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, tasked with setting policy for school sports, is considering two proposals related to trans girls playing sports. One would bar trans girls from participating in girls’ sports. Another would create a separate division where trans athletes can compete.

The Tumwater board’s votes support those rule changes. The association is slated to vote on them next month.

The district said it was committed to working with the education department “to address the concerns in the complaint.”

“Our priority has always been to create a safe, welcoming, and inclusive learning environment for all students, families, and staff,” spokesperson Laurie Wiedenmeyer said in an email. “While we cannot discuss specific details due to confidentiality requirements, we take all concerns seriously and remain dedicated to continuous improvement in our schools.”

Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports by, in part, withholding federal funding for districts that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.” The order directed the Department of Education to prioritize inquiries like the one launched against Tumwater.

The order is one of several seeking to restrict how trans people participate in American society. Washington state and others have sued over another that aims to withhold federal funding for providers of gender-affirming care to trans youth. On Friday, a federal judge in Seattle indefinitely blocked that order.

In response, Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said “Washington state will do everything in our power to defend the rule of law, states’ rights to establish education policy, and to protect the beautiful diversity of our 1.1 million students and educators.”

Reykdal noted state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

A spokesperson for Reykdal’s office said Monday that it would not have any role in the Tumwater investigation unless the Department of Education requests its involvement.

“OSPI’s guidance to school districts on this topic is rooted in both state and federal law, and we will not be changing our guidance unless the law changes,” said the spokesperson, Katy Payne.

Payne also said that the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction was “closely monitoring” the Tumwater school board’s actions, and “we are determining our next steps, which may include a possible formal investigation.”

In a statement, a federal education official said the investigation brought by the department’s civil rights office in Seattle “demonstrates that the Trump Education Department will vigorously enforce Title IX to ensure men stop competing in women’s sports.”

“If Washington wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Department, it has to follow federal law,” continued Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The Tumwater student’s complaint was brought by the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism. In a press release, the education department called the group, known as FAIR, a “nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.” Founded in 2021, FAIR has campaigned against antiracism work and gender-inclusive policies in schools.

Enacted in 1972, Title IX prohibited sex-based discrimination in schools receiving federal funding. The civil rights law increased the participation of female student athletes, and also provided an avenue for girls and women to bring complaints of sex discrimination.

The investigation follows the announcement of a similar probe against Maine’s education department. The investigation came after a public sparring match during a White House event between Trump and the state’s governor.

“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” Gov. Janet Mills told Trump.

“We are the federal law,” Trump responded, later adding, “otherwise, you’re not getting any federal funding.”

Mills told Trump, “We’ll see you in court.”

This story has been updated with comment from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com.