U.S. District Judge John McConnell said he received at least six credible death threats after he temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s freeze on trillions of dollars in federal funding in 2025. He also described a pizza delivery to his home that used the name of Daniel Anderl, a message he said crossed a line in a way the threats themselves did not.
McConnell said he had never seen a response quite like it. The judge, who was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, said, “I don’t think anything disturbed me as much as that did,” about the pizza sent to his home despite neither he nor his family ordering one.
The order carried the name of Anderl, Esther Salas’ 20-year-old son, who was shot and killed in July 2020 after a gunman posing as a FedEx driver targeted Salas’ home. McConnell said the reference shook him because it reached beyond anger at his ruling and into the kind of intimidation that federal judges now recognize immediately.
The hostility did not stop with the threats. McConnell said the U.S. Marshals Service told him that one of the death threats mentioned his wife, and he said posts about him included a photo of his daughter and doxxed her personal information. “I felt like someone put a dagger through my heart,” he said when the attacks turned toward his daughter.
He said his office at the Rhode Island federal courthouse was flooded with hundreds of irate emails and calls amid the MAGA backlash. In one call, a voice told him, “You better tell little motherf---ing Judge McConnell, I don’t know who the hell he thinks he is,” and added, “I wish somebody would f---ing assassinate your a--.” McConnell said, “I signed up for whatever, I’ll take the lumps,” but added that “what’s unusual is the dehumanization, the threats, the personalization of our doing our jobs.”
The fight over the ruling spilled onto X, where Laura Loomer posted about McConnell and suggested he had abused his judicial power, then Elon Musk reshared the post. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the idea that Donald Trump’s remarks about judges amount to threats, calling that “deeply unserious and should be dismissed by anyone with half a brain,” while also saying, “No one understands the dangers of political violence more than President Trump” and that “The Trump administration cares deeply for the safety of all members of the Judicial Branch.”
The episode lands as judges across the country are pressing for more protection. Last month, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett appeared on Capitol Hill to seek millions in additional funding for security because of threats against their lives. McConnell’s case shows how quickly a ruling can trigger a wave of threats, personal exposure and family fear — and it leaves open the most immediate question: what protection, if any, now follows the judge and the people around him.
