Federal judges aren’t exactly known for speaking their minds publicly.
But dozens of sitting judges are now breaking that silence, and they’re describing a judicial system under a level of pressure and intimidation they say they have never seen before.
In two separate reports released this week, judges from across the country offered rare first-person accounts of the threats they’ve faced since Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025.
Their stories include death threats, threatening phone calls and emails, swatting, doxxing and a bizarre new form of intimidation known as “pizza doxxing,” in which unsolicited pizzas are anonymously sent to judges’ homes.
The message is clear: Someone knows where you live.
And for some judges, the threats have become so serious that they’ve changed how their families live.
Some told researchers they have asked loved ones to take different routes home. Others have stopped their children from playing outside. Some were advised to buy firearms for protection.
One judge received more than 700 threats and became so concerned after someone posted the floor plans of their home online that they built a safe room.
Other judges reported being swatted—a dangerous hoax in which someone falsely reports a violent crime at a person’s home, sending armed police officers to the address.
The accounts come from two major reports released this week: one from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law and another joint project by NYU’s Rule of Law Lab and the Berkeley Judicial Institute.
Researchers interviewed sitting and retired judges appointed by presidents from both parties to understand the threats they are facing, why the attacks appear to be increasing and what the intimidation could mean for the independence of the courts.
The answer was strikingly consistent.
Judges say it isn’t simply that threats exist. Threats against judges have always existed.
What’s different is the volume and severity.
Both reports found that the latest surge began in early 2025, after Trump returned to office.
And judges pointed to the increasingly hostile political environment surrounding the federal courts.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked judges who issue rulings they don’t like, labeling some “rogue judges” and calling for their impeachment or other consequences.
Those attacks don’t stay in Washington.
They spread rapidly across social media, where individual judges can become targets of angry political campaigns—and sometimes of people willing to take matters into their own hands.
Judges interviewed for the reports cited contentious cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and legal challenges to Trump’s policies as triggering waves of threats.
Amrit Singh, the lead author of the NYU Rule of Law Lab’s report, was careful not to blame Trump alone.
She said public officials more broadly have contributed to the crisis by using increasingly aggressive rhetoric against judges. Her study, she emphasized, is nonpartisan and based on interviews with 34 judges as well as publicly available research.
Still, the timing is difficult to ignore.
“The facts speak for themselves,” Singh told HuffPost. “This is an academic study, and I can talk to you about what the evidence shows.”
Singh warned that the threats are no longer an abstract problem.
They’re “causing real harm to real people,” she said.
That includes judges appointed by presidents from both parties.
One particularly disturbing tactic is “pizza doxxing.”
Someone anonymously orders an unsolicited pizza to a judge’s home, effectively telling the judge that their address is known.
Singh’s report also found that the U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for federal judicial security, is understaffed and underfunded.
Even more troubling, researchers found that cases involving doxxing and swatting are rarely prosecuted, despite federal law prohibiting threats against federal judges.
For U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, that failure is especially personal.
Salas’s son, Daniel, was murdered in 2020 by a disgruntled lawyer who had previously appeared before her in court. Since then, she has repeatedly warned about the dangers of escalating attacks on judges.
Salas told HuffPost that, as of February 2026, at least 200 pizza-doxxing incidents had targeted judges.
In at least 20 cases, she said, perpetrators used her murdered son’s name as the person supposedly delivering the pizza.
“I fear we are normalizing this kind of irresponsible, dangerous rhetoric,” Salas said.
She also warned about what that normalization could mean for the courts—and for democracy.
“We’re either normalizing it or we’re desensitized to it,” she said, “because they’re flooding the zone.”
The Brennan Center’s report paints a similarly grim picture.
Judges told researchers that they have never felt more vulnerable in their jobs. They worry about their own safety, the safety of their families and whether future judges will be willing to accept the risks that increasingly come with serving on the federal bench.
Judge William G. Young, a senior U.S. district judge in Massachusetts appointed by Ronald Reagan, described the current environment in unusually blunt terms.
“In 40 years of judicial service, I have never experienced an executive branch that is so overtly hostile to the federal judiciary—top to bottom,” Young said.
“Never have I experienced or seen anything like this—never.”
Other judges raised concerns about courthouse security and the U.S. Marshals Service.
One judge said marshals who had previously been assigned to their courthouse had been redeployed to immigration enforcement.
Stephen Spaulding, a co-author of the Brennan Center report, said Congress should work with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to create a commission examining how to strengthen security throughout the federal judiciary.
Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan made a similar recommendation in July while testifying before a Senate committee about the Supreme Court’s budget and security needs.
Barrett has experienced the threats herself.
In March, after Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joined a decision against the Trump administration, Barrett was targeted in a pizza-doxxing incident. Her sister was also the target of a bomb threat.
Then, in May, Barrett was swatted at her home.
Her teenage son opened the door to find police cars outside after someone falsely reported that gunfire was coming from the house.
Supreme Court justices have had around-the-clock security since at least 2022.
Hundreds of federal district and appeals court judges do not have comparable protection.
“The Supreme Court has its own police. Lower court federal judges do not have a similar security apparatus,” Spaulding said.
He said there are legitimate questions about whether that needs to change.
“It’s urgent and necessary.”
And that’s ultimately what makes the judges’ accounts so unsettling.
This isn’t simply a story about politicians criticizing judges or angry people sending nasty emails.
It’s about what happens when attacks on the judiciary become so relentless, and threats become so personal, that judges start worrying about whether doing their jobs could put their families in danger.
A judge shouldn’t have to build a safe room because someone posted their home’s floor plans online.
A teenager shouldn’t have to open the front door to a swarm of police officers because someone wanted to scare a Supreme Court justice.
The judiciary depends on judges being able to make decisions without fear of political retaliation. Judges shouldn’t have to wonder whether ruling according to the law will make them the next target.
