New York officials are evaluating the need to strengthen security for the judge assigned to Donald Trump’s hush-money case after the former President’s supporters labelled him an “enemy of the people”.
Trump launched a verbal attack on Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday night, hours after the justice warned the former President against rhetoric “likely to incite violence or public unrest”.
Speaking from his Florida home hours after his arraignment on criminal charges relating to alleged payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, Trump called Justice Merchan a “Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris”.
The judge, a former prosecutor with 16 years on the bench, had explicitly warned the 76-year-old presidential candidate during his arraignment hearing against making such comments or risk a gag order.
A spokesman for the New York court system said on Wednesday: “We continue to evaluate security concerns and threats. We have maintained an increased security presence in and around courthouses and throughout the judiciary and will adjust protocols as necessary.”
Trump has spent the past few weeks posting veiled threats on his social media pages against Justice Merchan, as well as Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, who is leading the investigation in New York.
Trump has warned of “potential death and destruction” resulting from the criminal charges against him, called Bragg an “animal” backed by George Soros, the financier, and suggested that JudgeMerchan, who also oversaw the tax fraud trial of the Trump family business, “hates” him.
Officials have privately expressed fears that Trump’s comments on the case may turn Colombian-born Judge Merchan, 60, into “public enemy number one”.
The Daily Telegraph, London