Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
I believe the men and women who serve the United States Marshal Service, I think they’re taking it seriously. I have a problem, I guess, in saying to you that I’m confident that the Department of Justice is taking it seriously, because I have yet to see any leader in that office denounce these types of intimidations. Instead, what do I see from the leaders of the DOJ? They’re calling us ‘deranged,’ calling us ‘lunatics,’ ‘leftist lunatics,’ saying and declaring a war on ‘rogue’ judges in an open setting that was videoed for all to see on YouTube. So, what I see is pretty strong rhetoric from the Department of Justice condemning us, and I don’t see that equally strong rhetoric condemning these threats of intimidation. There is, from my vantage point, a lopsidedness. I think they obviously could alleviate a lot of concern if they came forward and talked about this investigation in a very general way, and showed that it matters to them. That the lives and safety of judicial officers and their families and personnel matter to them, but the silence is deafening,
— Judge Esther Salas of the District of New Jersey, in comments given to Law.com, concerning a possible investigation into the pizza delivery doxxing of federal judges at their private homes. Threats against members of the judiciary have rapidly increased during Trump’s presidency, and Salas is no stranger to them. In 2020, her son was fatally shot and her husband was wounded at their home by a lawyer who referred to Salas as an “affirmative action” case and a “lazy and incompetent Latina judge.”
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
The post ‘The Silence Is Deafening’: Judge Esther Salas Blasts DOJ Over Threats Of Judicial Intimidation appeared first on Above the Law.
