District Court Judge Esther Salas, whose son was killed and her husband injured in an attack intended for her, says the shooter also set his sights on Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice at the Supreme Court. Salas first reveals that authorities found a file on Sotomayor in a locker used by her attacker, Roy Den Hollander, a lawyer who had a case for Salas and committed suicide after the murder of her son Daniel. Salas appears in a Bill Whitaker report on the dramatic rise in threats against federal judges in the US airing Sunday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. ET / PT on CBS.
Her son’s death caused Salas to crusade to pass legislation that would remove judges’ personal information from the Internet. When she heard what the FBI had found in the locker, she realized she wasn’t the only one watching Hollander. They found another gun, a Glock, more ammunition. But the most disturbing thing they found was a Manila folder with a workup of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, ”Salas said. She says it was chilling to see a member of the Supreme Court in his sights. “Who knows what could have happened? But we have to understand that judges are at risk,” she told Whitaker. “That we put ourselves in great danger every day for doing our job.”
Salas said 60 minutes in the months since her son’s death have continued to face new threats. She shared a few examples, one of which was, “We,” “quote,” must start killing these corrupt politicians and judges, and their families, “ending quote.”
Threats to federal judges have risen 400% in the past five years to more than 4,000 incidents. These include hate mail, telephone harassment, protests at their homes, and actual attempted murder. The US Marshals, who protect federal judges, are asking for an additional 1,000 officers at a cost of $ 250 million. The new bill that Salas supports also calls for several millions more to upgrade home security systems for judges.
Whitaker also speaks with Senior District Court Judge James Robart, whose temporary suspension of then President Trump’s travel ban resulted in 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 fueled the situation by ridiculing Robart as a “so-called judge.”
“When you call someone a so-called judge, what you do is you attack the judiciary … I thought he had the right to challenge my decision. I don’t think criticizing a judge is acceptable,” says him against Whitaker. threats included harming his family.
Researchers found that thousands of the threats against Robart appeared to come from Americans, but were actually from Russia. This does not surprise Suzanne Spaulding, who conducted cyber security operations for Republican and Democratic administrations. “If Putin can undermine a significant portion of the population’s willingness to accept a court decision, then he could cause chaos in this country,” said Spaulding.