Following the egregious leak of the draft opinion signaling that the Supreme Court was poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion crowds descended on the homes of justices in a transparent effort to intimidate them into changing their minds. To no avail, we urged President Biden to stop equivocating and to take the threat to justices seriously, but he was too worried about disappointing the radical Left, and too deferential to their “passion.” If there was any doubt just how real the danger is, the frightening news about Justice Brett Kavanaugh should remove it.
Early Wednesday morning, an armed California man was detained by police shortly after getting out of a taxicab in front of Kavanaugh’s house. According to the criminal complaint, “An inventory search of the seized suitcase and backpack revealed a black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 with two magazines and ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crow bar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items.” He told police he intended to break into Kavanaugh’s house and kill him, because he was upset about the leaked abortion opinion and the Uvalde school shooting, and “believed that the Justice he intended to kill would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws.” The complaint says that he found Kavanaugh’s address on the Internet.
As disturbing as this news is, we cannot say it is surprising. In the weeks following the leaked Justice Samuel Alito opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, pro-abortion protesters have vandalized and firebombed pro-life organizations, harassed churchgoers, and shown up at justices’ homes. Leading up to the incident at Kavanaugh’s house, justices received a flood of death threats. Even after news broke of the foiled assassination attempt, protesters gathered Wednesday evening to picket outside his home.
Biden has tried to thread the needle by not opposing protests at justices’ homes as long as they were peaceful. When former White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked last month about activists posting a map of justices’ homes, her response was, “I think 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.” While saying that Biden wanted the protests to be peaceful, she added, “I don’t have an official U.S. government position on where people protest.”
The Left mostly shrugged at this problem. Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz argued that protesting in front of justices’ homes was justified because fencing had been erected in front of the Supreme Court building. One opinion piece from NBC’s Noah Berlatsky, which aged particularly poorly, was headlined, “Brett Kavanaugh is not in danger — unlike the abortion precedent he’s ready to overturn.”
In fairness, Senate Democrats did act to pass a bill increasing funding for security for the family members of Supreme Court members. But when they did, they received a torrent of criticism from the Left, which viewed it as a sign of weakness in the abortion wars. MSNBC blogger Ja’han Jones wrote that passage of the bill was a “cowardly” act and that “it’s an embarrassment for all involved, and Democrats in particular should be ashamed.” He lamented that “it seems obvious that Democrats are just succumbing to right-wing pressure — and providing more fodder for Republicans who tar progressive protests with unfounded claims of lawlessness.” House speaker Nancy Pelosi evidently received the message and has been stalling House passage of the bill for the past month.
The time for playing games is over. The prospect of the assassination of a Supreme Court justice linked to the outcome of a pending case poses such a significant threat to our republic that it should send chills down the spine of every American. The House should pass the Supreme Court security bill immediately, Biden should stop equivocating about intimidation efforts by his own side, federal laws against protesting at judges’ homes should be enforced, justices should receive all the protection they need, and we should all pray for their safety.