Democrats roundly condemned political violence after news that a suspect had been arrested for threatening to hurt and kill six of the Supreme Court’s nine Justices and some of their family members.
“Threats and acts of violence are unacceptable. Period,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told the Washington Post. “As President Biden and Vice President Harris have always said, violence has absolutely no place in our country. Violent rhetoric and threats are unacceptable,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said. “There’s absolutely no place for political violence in this country – full stop,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
It remains unknown exactly which justices 76-year-old Alaska resident Panos Anastasiou intended to attack.
However, a complaint filed against him Wednesday indicated that his threats included anti-Black slurs, and there is only one Black Supreme Court Justice – Clarence Thomas, who typically votes with the Court’s conservative majority. Additionally, the complaint laid out that Anastasiou’s threats included extreme remarks about a former president described by Anastasiou as a “convicted criminal.” Former President Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony, earlier this year.
ALASKA MAN ARRESTED FOR THREATS AGAINST SIX SUPREME COURT JUSTICES
The Anchorage, Alaska, home of Panos Anastasiou, who has been charged in federal court for allegedly threatening U.S. Supreme Court justices and their family members. ((AP Photo/Mark Thiessen))
Democrats have repeatedly slammed the Supreme Court as illegitimate. In a foretelling speech from Duke Law School on Monday, Kannon Shanmugam, who is widely considered one of the nation’s top appellate litigators and has argued 35 cases in front of the Supreme Court, said that “attacks on the legitimacy of the courts are contributing to the threat of violence against judges in general.”
“Enough is enough. When will the media press Democrats like Sen. Schumer, Sen. Durbin, Sen. Whitehouse, VP Harris and others to stop their baseless attacks on the Supreme Court that have created actual threats to the safety of our Justices?” questioned GOP Florida Sen. Rick Scott following news of Anastasiou’s arrest. “Hey, look, someone who took Chuck Schumer seriously,” said Trent England, the founder and executive director of conservative nonprofit Save Our States. Other critics pointed to how Anastasiou was a frequent donor to Democrats.
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Trump’s ability to shakeup the Supreme Court with new Justices has not sat well with Democrats.
In a fiery speech in front of the Supreme Court after a preliminary draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked in spring 2020, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, both nominated by Trump, in his crosshairs: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer exclaimed outside the steps of the Supreme Court in 2020. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
Justices serving on the U.S. Supreme Court bench (front row L-R) Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan, (back row L-R) Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. ((Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images))
“The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it,” a cohort of Democratic senators said in an August 2019 brief after the High Court took up a case about the constitutionality of a New York City law restricting legal gun owners from transporting their firearms.
In 2020, during the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s final Supreme Court nomination that would eventually make it to the bench, then-Sen. Kamala Harris called the confirmation “illegitimate” and “reckless.” Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Harris warned that there is “a national movement afoot to attack hard-won and hard-fought freedoms.”
“I don’t want to, at this point, use my voice in a way that is alarmist,” she added earlier this year in an interview with the New York Times. “But this court has made it very clear that they are willing to undo recognized rights.”
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The U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., is the seat of the Supreme Court of the United States and the judicial branch of government. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, in July, Sen. Ed Markey said: “Donald Trump and his MAGA partners” were to blame for the fact that “Our most fundamental freedoms are under attack from an illegitimate, extremist U.S. Supreme Court majority.”
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“They started by breaking the rules for confirming justices and ended up breaking the Supreme Court itself,” Markey said.
The DOJ indicated Wednesday that Anastasiou was charged with nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce. He faces up to 10 years in jail.
“Our justice system depends on the ability of judges to make their decisions based on the law, and not on fear,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday. “Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families.”