Police arrested an armed man near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home in the middle of the night on Wednesday after the suspect made threats against Kavanaugh, Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said.
McCabe said the man was arrested just before 2 a.m. and that he was armed, but she would not provide details about the kind of weapon he had, according to the New York Times.
The Washington Post first reported the arrest, noting that initial evidence indicated the suspect was angry over the leaked draft opinion revealing plans to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“This is why leaks are dangerous. This is why doxxing justices is a bad idea. This is why justices’ homes should be off limits,” Judicial Crisis Network president Carrie Severino tweeted.
“This is why the Court must release the Dobbs opinion as soon as possible,” she added. “This is not, to quote the Chief Justice, ‘business as usual’ at the Court. The threat to the justices is not theoretical. Until the opinion is finally released, the justices are in grave danger.”
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan urged both Democrat and Republican lawmakers to “strongly condemn” the intimidation of Supreme Court justices.
“I call on leaders in both parties in Washington to strongly condemn these actions in no uncertain terms,” Hogan said in a statement posted on Twitter. “It is vital to our constitutional system that the justices be able to carry out their duties without fear of violence against them and their families.”
Last month, after the Justice Department directed the U.S. Marshals Service to “help ensure” the safety of Supreme Court justices, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki refused to condemn the demonstrators gathered outside the justices’ private homes.
“The president’s view is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document,” Psaki said. “We obviously want people’s privacy to be respected. We want people to protest peacefully if they want to protest. That is certainly what the president’s view would be.”
In March 2020, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) threatened Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh over “awful decisions” related to cases concerning abortion, shouting that they would “pay the price.”
“I want to tell you Kavanaugh…You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price,” Schumer said. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
