U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas, whose son was killed and her husband injured in an attack on her, says the gunman also had his eyes on Supreme Court Associate Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Salas reveals for the first time that authorities found a file about Sotomayor in a closet used by her assailant, Roy Den Hollander, a lawyer who had a case before Salas and committed suicide after killing her son, Daniel. Salas appears in a Bill Whitaker report on the dramatic increase in the number of threats against US federal judges that will air on Sunday, February 21, at 19:00 ET / PT on CBS.
The death of her son sent Salas on a crusade to pass legislation to wipe out the personal information of judges on the Internet. When she found out what the FBI found in the closet, she realized she wasn’t the only one in Hollander’s sights. “They found another weapon, a Glock, more ammunition. But the most worrying thing they found was a case in Manila, with a preparation for justice Sonia Sotomayor,” says Salas. She says it was awful to see a member of the Supreme Court in her vision. “Who knows what could have happened? But we need to understand that judges are at risk,” she told Whitaker. “That we put ourselves in great danger every day because we do our job.”
Salas said 60 minutes in the months following her son’s death, judges continued to face new threats. She shared some examples, one of them read: “We”, “we quote”, we must start killing these corrupt politicians and judges, as well as their families, “we quote the end”.
Threats to federal judges have increased by 400 percent in the past five years, reaching more than 4,000 incidents. These include nasty emails, phone harassment, protests at their homes and attempted murder. US marshals, who protect federal judges, are demanding another 1,000 officers at a cost of $ 250 million. The new bill, which Salas supports, also calls for a few million more to modernize security systems for judges.
Whitaker also speaks with Judge James Robart, who has temporarily blocked President Trump’s then-travel ban, leading to an unprecedented 40,000 messages, including more than a hundred death threats. Critics called him a “walking dead man” and posted his phone number and address on social media. President Trump then inflamed the situation by ridiculing Robart as a “so-called judge.”
“When you appoint a so-called judge, what you do is attack the judiciary … I thought he had a right to challenge my decision. I don’t think criticizing a judge is acceptable,” he told Whitaker, adding the threats included injury. his family.
Investigators discovered thousands of threats against Robart that appeared to be from the Americans, but were actually from Russia. This is not surprising for Suzanne Spaulding, who has led cyber security operations for Republican and Democratic administrations. “If Putin can undermine a significant segment of the population’s willingness to accept a court decision, then he can wreak havoc in this country,” says Spaulding.