U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was the victim of an apparent “swatting” at her home in Washington, D.C.
D.C. Metropolitan Police confirmed to Rolling Stone that on Sunday night law enforcement responded to a “report of a shooting” to which officers responded and “found nothing.” A source confirmed to NBC News that the address in Northwest D.C. was Chutkan’s residence and that she was home when the police arrived. The individual who answered the door said she “was not injured and that there was no one in her home,” according to a police report.
Swatting is a form of harassment consisting of falsely reporting a crime — such as a shooting, bomb threat, or hostage situation — in an attempt to force an aggressive police response to an unsuspecting address.
According to a copy of an incident report provided to Rolling Stone, “MPD cleared the home and nothing was found at the listed location.”
Chutkan is currently presiding over the criminal election interference case brought against former President Donald Trump by the Justice Department. Trump has repeatedly attacked Chutkan on social media and at public events. In October, the former president described Chutkan in a post on Truth Social as a “very Biased, Trump Hating Judge in D.C., who should have RECUSED herself due to her blatant and open loathing of your favorite President, ME.”
In the same post, Trump attacked the judge for implementing a partial gag order barring him from making public statements attacking prosecutors, witnesses, and court staff over the course of the trial.
Chutkan ruled last month against Trump’s bid to have the election interference case thrown out on the grounds that he was immune from prosecution for any alleged crimes committed during his tenure as president. In her scathing decision, Chutkan wrote that a “four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on [Trump] the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”
Trump has a habit of attacking judges, prosecutors, and potential witnesses involved in efforts to hold him accountable for his in-office abuses of power. Oftentimes his supporters will assign themselves the task of directly harassing and threatening the former president’s perceived enemies.
In November, New York’s state court system reported that Judge Arthur Engoron, charged with ruling in the state’s civil fraud case against the former president, and his clerk Allison Greenfield had been inundated with death threats and antisemitic attacks after Trump targeted the judge and his assistant on social media.
Chutkan herself has also been subjected to credible threats against her life and safety. In August, authorities arrested a woman in Texas who had left a racist voicemail to Chutkan’s chambers containing a threat to kill her.
