A Houston Area Democrat allegedly threatened to kill a U.S. Judge in a Grand Jury in the Election Interference Case
After the grand jury voted to indict Trump for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Chutkan was assigned to the case.
Shry was held at the request of a U.S. judge and is charged with one count of communication containing a threat to harm another.
That agent said Shry admitted to making the call when questioned, but said she had no plans to travel to Washington D.C. or to Lee’s office in Houston to carry out the threats.
She also “made a direct threat to kill” to kill congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, as well all Washington Democrats, broadly, and all members of the LGBTQ community, according to the Department of Homeland Security special agent who signed the court filing.
“You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” Shry allegedly said. “Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b****.”
A woman from the Houston area was arrested on Wednesday and charged with threatening the judge in the election interference case.
“The only conclusion I can draw is that Trump … is simply daring the court and the government to call him out, concluding that the government wants a clean and lean case against Trump and will not go down rabbit holes, even ones filled with rabbits,” said Luskin, who now defends companies and individuals at the firm Paul Hastings.
Trump already has disparaged former Vice President Mike Pence, who could be a key witness against him in a federal election interference trial, and urged former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan not to testify before a grand jury in Fulton County, Ga.
After multiple news organizations reported that his lawyers were wary of doing a press conference about the charges, Trump decided to wait until the next news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.
Defending Donald Trump with High-Cost Indictments: Boss, Cannon, Luskin, and Cozen O’Connor
Barry Boss, a former assistant federal public defender who now represents clients at the firm Cozen O’Connor, said defense attorneys generally warn clients not to talk to anyone about the case against them. “In the normal case, there are only risks and no benefits,” Boss added.
Further, Boss said that prosecutors could cite Trump’s recent comments, in which he claimed that more indictments would increase his lead over opponents for the White House nomination in a few years.
Judge Chutkan said that because of Trump’s status as a criminal, some of his First Amendment rights had to be surrendered to protect witnesses and the jury pool.
Robert Luskin, who started his career decades ago in the Justice Department’s organized crime and racketeering section, said he had watched more than one mafia-linked defendant catch new charges for obstruction, based on statements the defendants made after an indictment.
Luskin said it’s interesting that Trump has gone after the federal special counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
Trump didn’t criticize the judge in Florida who he appointed to the bench in 2020. Cannon is presiding over a Florida case that accuses Donald Trump of keeping highly classified documents in a bathroom at his Mar-a-Lago resort then refusing to return them to the FBI. The judge was overruled by equally conservative federal appeals court judges in a related dispute involving Trump last year.
“One can only assume that he believes she is inclined to be sympathetic to him and does not want either to piss her off or put her in a position where she simply has to act in order to preserve her credibility and dignity,” Luskin said.