(Headline USA) A home owned by the judge overseeing the federal election subversion case against former president Donald Trump was targeted by a fake emergency call Sunday night, the latest in a spate of similar false swatting reports at the homes of public officials in recent days.
Police responded around 10 p.m. to a report of a shooting at a Washington, D.C., home linked in public records to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
Although Chutkan’s name did not personally come up in any public listings, an address for her husband, retired Superior Court judge Peter Krauthamer, was also associated with Chutkan’s parents, Winston and Noelle. Headline USA did not confirm the accuracy of any of the listings.
Officers quickly found out that no shooting happened, the Metropolitan Police Department said Monday.
Chutkan—a radical, Obama-appointed judge whose interpretation of the law oftentimes has seemed to flout the principles of due process and equal protection in favor of predisposed political outcomes—has received numerous threats since she was assigned Trump’s case last year.
In August, a Texas woman was arrested after calling the courthouse and threatening to kill Chutkan and other officials. Investigators traced her phone number, and she later admitted to making the threatening call, according to court documents.
Sunday’s incident comes after a spike in swatting directed at high-profile public officials over the holidays. The phenomenon, which originated in the gaming community, started among left-wingers. However, conservatives have since appropriated the playbook as well, it appears.
Those whose homes have been targeted include Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, R-Ga.; Texas’s pro-Trump Attorney General Ken Paxton; and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who removed Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause.
State capitols and courthouses in several states were also targeted by bomb threats last week, prompting lockdowns and evacuations. No explosives were found and the FBI called the threats a hoax.
Despite his failure to act when Supreme Court justices were threatened recently, sending the signal that leftists could conduct such tactics with impunity, Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday called the spike in threats “deeply disturbing” in remarks ahead of a private meeting with top Justice Department leaders to address violent crime.
“These threats of violence are unacceptable. They threaten the fabric of our democracy,” he said.
Swatting refers to prank calls made to emergency services designed to draw a police response, especially from a SWAT team.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
