The United States is in the midst of a judicial crisis. Donald Trump and his close allies have been spearheading a campaign to discredit and impeach members of the judiciary questioning and rejecting his recent executive orders. This week, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson issued a chilling threat to these judges, saying “We do have authority over the federal courts… We can eliminate an entire district court.”
This smear campaign against the judiciary isn’t being driven solely by the executive branch and online fringe, but also by those organizations affiliated with Project 2025, a 920-page blueprint for authoritarianism in the United States that Trump is now carrying out after having said he knew nothing of it during the campaign.
Spearheaded by the far-right Heritage Foundation, and supported by more than 100 other far-right organizations, Project 2025 aims to create an “ideal” America that would see women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, people of color, and others deprived of their hard-won constitutional rights and the erosion of environmental and education protections. It also advocates for a frightening centralization of power in the executive branch, something Trump is already demonstrating through his repeated attacks against the judiciary.
Threats of violence and impeachment against the judiciary have risen considerably on fringe platforms over the past couple months, including a 54 percent increase from January to February, with some of the largest volumes of attacks occurring in March on Gab. Supporters of Project 2025 are targeting many of the same judges as these online extremists in their social media and blog posts, potentially stoking the flames of violence even further against America’s last line of defence against authoritarianism.
The Heritage Foundation, which masterminded Project 2025, has been setting the stage for these attacks for months. In May 2024, when Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial, Heritage’s Twitter account posted that Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the case, “is not acting as a judge. He’s acting as an activist agent.” Around the same time, Trump labelled Merchan as “a devil.”
More recently, Heritage has been launching attacks against any judge defying Trump’s executive orders. Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, wrote an article for The Daily Signal chastizing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson that extends a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that would keep Hampton Dellinger in his role at the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency responsible for investigating whistleblower claims, after Trump attempted to fire him. Von Spakovsky agreed with acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris’ comments that the decision represents an “unprecedented assault on the separation of powers,” and warned against “federal judges being emboldened to enter injudicious and unconstitutional orders.” A previous investigation by the Global Project Against Hate And Extremism (GPAHE) revealed that users on fringe sites, such as Gab, responded to articles mentioning Berman Jackson by calling for “every activist judge” to be fired.
The Heritage Foundation also attacked D.C. District Judge James Boasberg, who prohibited Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, by claiming he was “violating the law…through his judicial overreach.” Trump himself called for Boasberg’s impeachment, labeling him as a far-left “troublemaker and agitator.” GPAHE’s previous investigation also showed that the online far right mob targeted Boasberg based on news articles invoking language such as “far-left,” calling for “commie criminal psychopath judges” to be “[tried], convict[ed], and hang[ed]…for crimes against humanity and treason!!!!!”
The Heritage Foundation attacks Judge Boasberg, who denied Trump’s attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, by saying he is “violating the law…through judicial overreach” (Source: Twitter)
Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, meanwhile, is attempting to stoke hatred against the judiciary with claims that they’re responsible for an ongoing “constitutional crisis.” Kirk, recently named by the Trump administration to the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, is an avid Project 2025 supporter who at one time launched a campaign to discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and called the Civil Rights Act “a huge mistake.” Citing White House Press Secretary Karoline Keavitt’s claims that 67 percent of national injunctions issued by local district court judges were against Trump, Kirk reprimanded “partisan Democrat-appointed judges” for causing a “constitutional crisis.” Another attack on the courts by Kirk included calling judges “gavel-weilding dictators.” Kirk demanded the Supreme Court to “put these judges in place.”
Kirk, now part of the Trump administration, says federal court rulings represent an undemocratic “rule by 677 gavel-wielding dictators.” He called on the Supreme Court to “put these judges in place” (Source: Twitter)
Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and founder of America First Legal (AFL), listed for a time as a supporter of Project 2025, claimed that judges’ decisions against Trump represent “madness,” “lunacy,” “pure lawlessness,” and “the gravest assault on democracy.” Miller’s comments follow calls from AFL against U.S. District Judge John McConnell, Jr., to “recuse himself” from a case in which he blocked Trump’s spending freeze. In a subsequent “investigation” by AFL into why McConnell was allowed to preside over the case, the organization accused him of participating in “the left’s lawfare against President Trump.”
Per GPAHE’s previous investigation into violent threats against the judiciary, a Twitter user responded to a post describing McConnell’s decision as “lawfare” with “Arrest the judge, throw him in prison, charge him with treason, and repeat as many times as necessary with other treasonous activist judges who violate their oaths of office. Problem solved.” McConnell has also been targeted by Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Andrew Clyne (R-GA), who drafted articles of impeachment against McConnell and called him a “partisan activist.”
Stephen Miller calls judges’ decisions against Trump’s executive orders “lunacy,” “pure lawlessness,” and “the gravest assault on democracy” in a tweet that has had some 1.5 million views (Source: Twitter)
Josh Hammer is also attacking the judiciary. Hammer is a columnist and media personality, and is on the Board of Advisors for American Moment, an organization which supports Project 2025. In an interview on The Rubin Report, Hammer argued that “one little puny judge…can just stop an entire government program,” and therefore the Supreme Court must rule that lower courts (e.g., District Courts) cannot have this power. Hammer warned, similarly to other Project 2025 supporters, that the United States can become a “jurisdocracy” and “black robe tyranny” made up of “lawless punks” like Judge Boasberg. He also invoked war-like language when he stipulated that the judiciary “will not win this battle” between the judicial and executive branches.
Erin Hawley, senior counsel and vice president of the Center for Life & Regulatory Practice at the anti-LGBTQ+ Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), another Project 2025 supporter, wrote an opinion piece referencing U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order that requires the Trump Administration to make good on backlogged foreign aid payments. Even though the Supreme Court sided with Ali after the original decision was appealed, Hawley called Ali an “aggressive district judge.” Per our previously-mentioned investigation, Ali is also a target from the more violent online far-right, with some users calling for Ali to be “impeach[ed] and deport[ed].”
Continued threats against the judiciary, whether coming from Trump, his unelected allies like Elon Musk, or the organizations which officially supported Project 2025, all represent a key hallmark of authoritarianism. There are several examples demonstrating the authoritarian pattern of dismantling systems of checks and balances, particularly the judiciary, including Poland and the PiS government, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Javier Milei in Argentina. And as legal experts continue to be troubled by Trump and his allies attacking the judiciary, especially with judges experiencing an escalating amount of threats, a lack of resistance from the mainstream to this harmful rhetoric can lead to very real dangers against the judiciary, both on an institutional and individual level.
