Judges, jurors, prosecutors in Trump cases face death threats and doxing fears

A Texas woman was arrested and has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington and a member of Congress.

Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, called the federal courthouse in Washington and left the threatening message using a racist term for U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Aug. 5, court records show. Investigators traced her phone number and she later admitted to making the threatening call, according to a criminal complaint.

In the call, Shry told the judge, who is overseeing the election conspiracy case against Trump, "You are in our sights, we want to kill you," the documents said.

Prosecutors allege Shry also said, "If Trump doesn't get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you," and she threatened to kill U.S. congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat now running for mayor of Houston, according to court documents.

A judge earlier this week ordered Shry jailed. Court records show Shry is represented by the Houston public defender's office, which did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday.

Trump has publicly assailed Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by president Barack Obama, before she has even made any substantial rulings pertaining to the case. Trump has called her "highly partisan" and " VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!" because of her past comments in a separate case overseeing the sentencing of one of the defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Chutkan in a hearing last week warned Trump's lawyers that his defence should be mounted in the courtroom and "not on the internet."

'Sick' to target grand jurors: congressman

Meanwhile, multiple U.S. outlets have reported in recent days that users of a fringe website known for extreme rhetoric are posting addresses and phone numbers online after Trump was indicted late Monday in Georgia over 2020 election interference. Per Georgia law, grand juror names are included on the indictment, and some of the unnamed website's users are trying to dox those individuals by searching address information that match the juror names.

"Grand jurors are regular Americans doing their civic duty," Democratic congressman Ted Lieu posted online in response to the reports. "Sick that Trump supporters are targeting grand jurors." Lieu called on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other high-profile Republicans to condemn the practice.

Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat's office said investigators are working to trace the origin of the threats. The sheriff's office said other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were assisting.

"We take this matter very seriously and are co-ordinating with our law enforcement partners to respond quickly to any credible threat and to ensure the safety of those individuals who carried out their civic duty," the sheriff's office said in a statement.

Trump has been indicted four times since March. No previous president was ever indicted.

One of those indictments concerns the unlawful retention of documents after he left the White House.

After the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump's Florida estate in August 2022 in relation to that case, an Ohio man named Ricky Shiffer died in a shootout days later after trying to get inside the FBI's Cincinnati office.

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Shiffer, a U.S. Navy veteran, was armed with a nail gun and an AR-15-style rifle when he tried to breach the visitor screening area at the FBI office, according to an Associated Press report last year. Shiffer fled and was later spotted by a state trooper along a highway, leading to his being fatally shot.

Before the shooting, a message posted on Trump's Truth Social platform from the account @rickywshifferjr included a "call to arms" and urged people to "be ready for combat" after the FBI carried out the search at the former president's Florida property.

And earlier this month, a Utah man was shot and killed in an FBI confrontation at his home.

The FBI investigation began following a March tip about a threat David Robertson, 74, made on Truth Social. Robertson referenced a "presidential assassination," referring to Joe Biden, and posted threats against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and New York Attorney General Letitia James, authorities said.

Bragg is overseeing one of the Trump criminal indictments, involving allegations of falsified business records in connection with hush money payments.

James is heading up a civil case against Trump Organization that is slated for trial in October.

Garland appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, who is leading the probes that resulted in two of the four Trump indictments.