RUTHFULLY YOURS

The obvious threat against the Supreme Court to which the Biden Justice Department has turned a blind eye has now escalated to its inevitable next phase with the arrest of a California man early this morning for allegedly plotting to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The man was apprehended shortly before 2 a.m. near the home where the justice lives with his wife and children. He was armed with a gun and was carrying burglary tools that would facilitate a break-in.

To the surprise of utterly no one, the man made statements indicating that he was incensed over the leaked draft opinion indicating that a majority of the Court, including Kavanaugh, is poised to overrule Roe v. Wade (1973) and its progeny, which lawlessly manufactured a supposed constitutional right to abortion. The man also claimed to be angry over mass shootings. And what better way to express such outrage than go out and kill a Supreme Court justice?

It goes without saying that responsibility for this heinous act (and the more heinous intent behind it) lies with the would-be assailant, and whoever, if anyone, was collaborating with him. That said, it is open season on Supreme Court justices because President Biden and most Washington Democrats have refused to condemn the protests against them, fearing the wrath of their political base. Taking his cues from them, Attorney General Merrick Garland has refused to enforce the law.

To repeat what I’ve written before, it is a federal crime to protest at the residence of a U.S. judge. Garland understands this well — he was a U.S. judge for over 20 years. Nevertheless, he is politicizing his job.

Pro-abortion activists have evolved beyond their customary outrage of demonstrating outside the courthouse — egged on by top Democrats, such as Senate majority leader Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), who just a year ago brazenly threatened Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch in connection with potential abortion rulings: “I want to tell you, Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch, you have unleashed a whirlwind, and you will pay the price. . . . You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Well done, Chuck.

With such incendiary rhetoric by the political class whose obligation is to protect the Court and the justices, who could be surprised that the rabid protests have moved to the homes of Republican-appointed justices?

Yet, besides muttering about how upset he is by the prospect of violence, Garland has done nothing.

Like the Biden administration’s political flacks, the attorney general indignantly vows that he will not tolerate violence. But our law’s redline in this matter is not violence. It is political pressure and intimidation. In our constitutional system, judges are insulated from politics, and judicial proceedings are protected from political pressure and intimidation. There is no need for the Justice Department and the FBI to wait until a radical tries to assassinate a judge before taking action. The law forbids people from picketing or parading outside the home of a judge (or a juror, or a witness).

Violence is not an element of the offense. Picketing and parading are forms of political pressure. There is no free-expression right to engage in them with the intent to influence a court case. The threat that protests will corrupt judicial proceedings — causing decisions to be made out of fear rather than faithful application of the law — is too great. Political pressure is for policy debates. It can have no place in judicial proceedings if we are to have the rule of law.

Yet Democrats have encouraged political pressure on the conservative justices for the same reason that the leaker lawlessly — and, for the Supreme Court as a functioning judicial institution, ruinously — disseminated Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in the Dobbs case. They believe the pressure can work.

There was an easy way to prevent this. Garland could have remembered that he is the attorney general of the United States and ordered the FBI to go all January 6 on these demonstrators — when it comes to pro-Trump protesters, the DOJ and the bureau have shown that they know how to scorch the earth, identify hundreds of selfie-snapping numbskulls, and haul their asses to federal court for a trial . . . on charges of parading. There are gigabytes of video of these protests at the justices’ homes. It would have been effortless for federal agents to arrest and charge a raft of them — you know, as if they were almost as dangerous as Peter Navarro.

If Garland had done that to protect the justices, if he had done his job instead of talked about doing his job, the message would be clear that the justices, their families, and their homes are off-limits. No, you can’t stop every lunatic. But if, rather than doing your best to stop them, you convey that the law won’t be enforced, you get more of them.

Eventually, one of them is going to do something horrible. As one of them tried to do this morning.