A Texas girl has been charged with threatening to kill Tanya S. Chutkan, the federal decide in Washington who’s overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on fees of looking for to overturn the 2020 election.
The girl, Abigail Jo Shry, of Alvin, Texas, referred to as Judge Chutkan’s chambers on Aug. 5, two days after Mr. Trump was arraigned on the election interference fees, and left a voice mail message attacking the decide, who’s Black, with a racial slur, in keeping with a legal grievance unsealed on Friday.
In the message, Ms. Shry instructed Judge Chutkan, “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, bitch,” in keeping with the grievance. She added, “You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”
Ms. Shry, 43, additionally issued a menace towards Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Black Democratic congresswoman from Texas.
Mr. Trump has an extended historical past of verbally attacking judges and different individuals concerned within the legal instances introduced towards him, significantly on social media. The day earlier than the decision, Mr. Trump had posted a message on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” (His marketing campaign mentioned his phrases weren’t directed towards anybody concerned within the election interference case.)
Late final week, Judge Chutkan addressed that subject, warning Mr. Trump that she would take measures to make sure that he didn’t make “inflammatory statements” in regards to the case in a manner which may intimidate witnesses or in any other case hurt the integrity of the continuing.
Almost instantly, Mr. Trump examined the boundaries of Judge Chutkan’s admonition by posting a collection of messages on Truth Social that largely amplified the criticism that different individuals had lodged towards her.
In one publish, written by an ally of Mr. Trump’s, the lawyer Mike Davis, a big photograph of Judge Chutkan accompanied textual content that falsely claimed she had “openly admitted she’s running election interference against Trump.” In two different posts, Mr. Trump wrote: “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR.”
The posts criticizing Judge Chutkan have been printed after Ms. Shry’s voice mail message.
When federal brokers visited Ms. Shry at house three days after she left the message for Judge Chutkan, she admitted that she had referred to as the decide’s chambers, the grievance mentioned. Ms. Shry instructed the brokers that she had no plans to go to Washington or to Houston, the world that Ms. Lee represents. But she additionally mentioned that “if Sheila Jackson Lee comes to Alvin, then we need to worry,” in keeping with the grievance.
Ms. Shry was denied bail on Wednesday and ordered to be held in custody for a minimum of 30 days following a detention listening to in Federal District Court in Houston.
At the listening to, court docket papers mentioned, Ms. Shry’s father, Mark Shry, testified that she was a “nonviolent alcoholic” who “sits on her couch daily watching the news while drinking too many beers.”
After consuming, Mr. Shry instructed a decide in Texas, Ms. Shry usually grew to become “agitated by the news” and began “calling people and threatening them,” the papers mentioned.
Mr. Trump’s supporters have generally engaged in violence after officers within the legal justice system have taken motion towards him.
Last summer season, after F.B.I. brokers descended on Mar-a-Lago, his non-public membership and residence in Florida, hauling away a trove of categorized paperwork, an armed Ohio man enraged by the search tried to interrupt into the bureau’s area workplace close to Cincinnati.
The man was finally killed in a shootout with the native police.
Source: www.nytimes.com