The sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett faced a bomb threat earlier this month at her Charleston home in South Carolina.
On March 10, Charleston police responded to an email threat sent two days earlier to the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office concerning the home of Amanda Coney Williams, the sister of the associate justice. The message said a bomb was in her mailbox.
No bomb was found.
According to the Post and Courier, the email stated: “Using a 1×8-inch threaded galvanized pipe, end caps, a kitchen timer, some wires, metal clips and homemade black powder, I’ve constructed a pipe bomb which I recently placed in Amy Coney Barrett’s sister’s mailbox at her home at (redacted), Charleston, SC (redacted). The device’s detonation will be triggered as soon as the mailbox is next opened. Free Palestine!”
According to WFYY, an NBC affiliate in Greenville, South Carolina, no arrests have been made.
The report also noted that judges — and family members of Justice Barrett — have received pizzas sent to their homes by an unidentified person, which has been seen as a sign of intimidation at a time when threats against judges have been on the rise.
The Judicial Conference spoke out about judicial security during a press conference Tuesday, saying the U.S. Marshals Service and the judiciary need funding to ensure enough resources are available to investigate threats, which are increasing with technology through the dark web.
Justice Barrett was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2020 by President Trump following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
She has been criticized by advocates on both sides of the aisle, with liberals concerned about her record on abortion and conservatives worried that she is not a reliable vote with the high court’s conservative majority.
