Politics

Judges Worry Trump Could Tell U.S. Marshals to Stop Protecting Them

Published

11 months ago

April 25, 2025

Judges Worry Trump Could Tell U.S. Marshals to Stop Protecting Them

On March 11, about 50 judges gathered in Washington for the biannual meeting of the Judicial Conference, which oversees the administration of the federal courts. It was the first time the conference met since President Trump retook the White House.

In the midst of discussions of staffing levels and long-range planning, the judges’ conversations were focused, to an unusual degree, on rising threats against judges and their security, said several people who attended the gathering.

Behind closed doors at one session, Judge Richard J. Sullivan, the chairman of the conference’s Committee on Judicial Security, raised a scenario that weeks before would have sounded like dystopian fiction, according to three officials familiar with the remarks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations: What if the White House were to withdraw the protections it provides to judges?

The U.S. Marshals Service, which by law oversees security for the judiciary, is part of the Justice Department, which Mr. Trump is directly controlling in a way that no president has since the Watergate scandal.

Judge Sullivan noted that Mr. Trump had stripped security protections from Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, and John Bolton, his former national security adviser. Could the federal judiciary, also a recent target of Mr. Trump’s ire, be next?

Judge Sullivan, who was nominated by President George W. Bush and then elevated to an appellate judgeship by Mr. Trump, referred questions about his closed-door remarks to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which stated its “complete confidence in those responsible for judicial security.”

There is no evidence that Mr. Trump has contemplated revoking security from judges. But Judge Sullivan’s remarks were an extraordinary sign of the extent of judges’ anxiety over the threats facing the federal bench. And they highlight a growing discomfort from judges that their security is handled by an agency that, through the attorney general, ultimately answers to the president, and whose funding, in their view, has not kept pace with rising threats.

“Cutting all the security from one judge or one courthouse — stuff like that hasn’t happened, and I don’t expect it to,” said Jeremy Fogel, a retired federal judge who directs the Berkeley Judicial Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, and is in frequent contact with current judges. “But, you never know. Because it’s fair to say that limits are being tested everywhere. Judges worry that it could happen.”

The Marshals Service said in a statement that it acted “at the direction of the federal courts” and “effectuate all lawful orders of the federal court.” The integrity of the judicial process, the statement read, depends on “protecting judges, jurors and witnesses.”

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Trump’s decision to strip security from Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Bolton, two former officials, had no bearing on his approach to sitting judges. He called worries that the president would deprive judges of their security “speculation” that was “dangerous and irresponsible.”

Founded in 1789, the U.S. Marshals Service has a wide range of law-enforcement duties, in addition to its central function of supporting the judiciary. There are now 94 presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed U.S. marshal positions, one for each judicial district. The agency’s director reports to the deputy attorney general.

The concerns about who oversees the marshals come as threats against judges have been on the rise, expanding the burdens on the service.

Statistics released by the agency show that the number of judges targeted by threats more than doubled from 2019 to 2024, before Mr. Trump returned to office. In those years, he disputed the result of the 2020 election in court, and the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that made access to abortion a constitutional right. In June 2022, after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe leaked, an armed man made an attempt to assassinate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh at his home.

In his end-of-year report for 2024, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted “a significant uptick in identified threats at all levels of the judiciary.”

Since Mr. Trump took office in January, he and his supporters have insulted individual judges on social media and called for their impeachment in response to rulings they don’t like. In a message posted on Easter, Mr. Trump referred to “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges” who are allowing a “sinister attack on our Nation to continue” in regard to immigration.

Judges and their family members have in recent weeks reported false threats of bombs in their mailboxes. As of mid-April, dozens of pizzas have been anonymously sent to judges and their family members at their homes, a means of signaling that your enemy knows where you live.

According to Ronald Zayas, the chief executive of Ironwall, a company that contracts with district courts, state courts and some individual judges to provide data protection and security services for judges and other public officials, the number of judges using his services for emergency protection is more than four times the average number for last year. He said 40 judges also used their own money to bolster their security with Ironwall, twice as many as on Jan. 1.

In a letter to Congress dated April 10, Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., who directs the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, complained that funding for court security remained frozen at 2023 levels through the 2025 fiscal year “at a time when threats against federal judges and courthouses are escalating.” Judges have issued similar warnings for years.

The total amount spent has remained nearly flat, rising to $1.34 billion in 2024 from $1.26 billion in 2022, according to statistics from the administrative office and the marshals, despite inflation and staff pay increases.

At the same time, burdens on the service have grown.

In recent years, the U.S. Marshals said in a statement, they have started helping to protect the homes of the Supreme Court justices, whose security is primarily handled by the separate Supreme Court Marshal’s Office. Last summer, a U.S. marshal stationed outside Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s home in Washington shot and wounded an armed man in an attempted carjacking.

In January, the Trump administration gave the marshals, along with other law enforcement agencies, the new power to enforce immigration laws. That move prompted Judge Edmond E. Chang, who chairs the Judicial Conference’s criminal law committee, to write a memo to all district-court and magistrate judges warning about the potential impact on the marshals’ ability to protect them. (Judge Chang declined to comment; his memo was reported earlier by Reuters.)

In addition to protecting judges’ lives, U.S. law states the marshals’ “primary role and mission” is “to obey, execute, and enforce all orders” from the federal courts. Enforcing court orders can entail imposing fines and imprisonment for anyone judges find to be in contempt of court, including, in theory, executive branch officials.

The Trump administration’s posture in some cases raises the possibility that the already-stretched marshals could emerge as a crucial referee between the branches. In the courtroom, Justice Department lawyers have come close to openly flouting court orders stemming from the unlawful deportation to a prison in El Salvador of a group of nearly 140 Venezuelans and Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose removal officials admitted was an “administrative error.” Two judges have responded by opening inquiries that could lead to administration officials being held in contempt of court.

“What happens if the marshals are ordered to deliver a contempt citation to an agency head that has defied a court order?” asked Paul W. Grimm, a retired federal judge who leads the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke University. “Are they going to do that? The question of who the Marshals Service owes their allegiance to will be put to the test in the not-too-distant future, I suspect.”

Concern over the oversight of the Marshals Service is not new. A 1982 report by the Government Accountability Office called the marshals’ oversight arrangement “an unworkable management condition.” As a possible solution, it proposed legislation to move control of the marshals to the judiciary.

Some members of Congress have begun proposing a similar solution.

“Do you think you could better protect judges if your security was more independent?” Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, asked a federal judge testifying on behalf of the Judicial Conference at a hearing in February, a few days before Judge Sullivan’s remarks.

Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, responded that he considered the question of independent oversight legitimate. The judge answered that the conference would consider the matter.

In an interview, Mr. Swalwell said he was drafting legislation that would put the judiciary in charge of its own security.

Last month, Ronald Davis, who led the agency under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., issued a stark warning on LinkedIn of “a constitutional crisis if a president refuses to enforce or comply with a federal court order.” He too proposed measures to insulate the marshals from potential interference by the executive branch.

In the meantime, the administration’s immediate goal for the Marshals Service may be to shrink it.

On April 15, Mark P. Pittella, the agency’s acting director, sent a letter to more than 5,000 employees of the service as part of the staff-cutting measures associated with Elon Musk’s project, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, offering them the opportunity to resign and be eligible for more than four months of administrative leave with full pay. In the letter, obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Pittella wrote that agency leadership would review applications to ensure they did not “adversely impact U.S.M.S. mission-critical requirements.”

But a spokesman for the service said the offer was open to employees in all areas of responsibility, including marshals tasked with protecting judges.

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Politics

As cattle herds shrink and beef prices rise, investors back AI cow collars

Published

7 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

As cattle herds shrink and beef prices rise, investors back AI cow collars

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A startup putting high-tech collars on cows could soon be worth more than $2 billion, as investors bet the technology could help farmers cut costs and cope with labor shortages.

Halter, a New Zealand-based company, is in talks to raise new funding in a deal expected to be led by billionaire Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, according to a Bloomberg report. The round is attracting heavy investor interest and is close to being filled, though final details are still being negotiated.

THE SINGLE CRUSHING PROBLEM AMERICAN CATTLE RANCHERS WISH TRUMP WOULD FIX INSTEAD

A ranch hand rounds up cattle by horseback and drive them into the pens at the Adams Ranch Inc. in St. Lucie County, Florida on July 9, 2013. (Ty Wright/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Farmers are increasingly looking for ways to lower expenses and boost efficiency — changes that could eventually affect food prices for consumers.

Beef prices are already soaring, and economists warn Americans shouldn’t expect relief anytime soon as the U.S. cattle herd has shrunk to its smallest size in 75 years.

The decline has been driven by years of drought, rising costs and an aging ranching workforce. Experts say rebuilding herds will take years, meaning beef prices are likely to remain elevated.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the average price of beef in grocery stores climbed from about $8.60 per pound in February 2025 to $10.12 per pound a year later — a roughly 18% increase.

THE COST OF THIS GROCERY STAPLE IS NEARING RECORD HIGHS — AND AMERICANS CAN’T GET ENOUGH

Against that backdrop, Halter is pitching technology aimed at helping farmers do more with less.

The company’s solar-powered, artificial intelligence-driven collars let ranchers herd cattle without fences, using GPS, sound and vibration signals controlled through a smartphone app. The system also tracks livestock health and movement in real time, giving farmers a way to manage herds remotely.

The goal is straightforward — fewer workers, lower costs and more efficient land use.

THE SURPRISING REASON WHY AMERICANS COULD FACE HIGH BEEF PRICES FOR YEARS

Cattle are shown in pens at the Cattlemen’s Columbus Livestock Auction in Columbus Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images)

Halter is part of a broader push toward “precision agriculture,” where technology is used to modernize farming. But that sector has struggled in recent years, with a wave of startups collapsing and investors pulling back amid high costs and slow adoption.

The company has also expanded into the U.S., opening an office in Colorado and targeting American ranchers as a key growth market.

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If the latest round closes as expected, it would signal renewed confidence that AI can succeed in farming — an industry where many tech bets have fallen short.

Halter did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Amanda covers the intersection of business and politics for Fox News Digital.

Politics

‘It’s the people who are suffering.’ How Cuba is struggling under U.S. oil blockade

Published

8 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

‘It’s the people who are suffering.’ How Cuba is struggling under U.S. oil blockade

HAVANA — Reggaeton boomed in a neighborhood bar in Old Havana on a recent night, when, suddenly, the music stopped and everything went dark.

The customers groaned. Another blackout.

A U.S. blockade on oil shipments to Cuba has plunged the island into its worst energy crisis in modern history. The country’s already cratering economy now teeters on the verge of collapse, with vehicles idled by a lack of gas, hospitals forced to cancel surgeries and millions living without a steady supply of electricity and water.

It is the result of a calculated pressure campaign by President Trump, whose administration is negotiating with Cuba’s leaders over the future of the communist-ruled Caribbean island.

People fed up with rolling blackouts have staged sporadic protests in recent days, banging pots and shouting slogans against the government, rare demonstrations in a country known for repressing dissent.

Some power outages hit isolated areas, but in recent weeks Cuba has experienced three island-wide blackouts. The most recent one struck Saturday night and continued into Sunday.

Two men sell food from a cart in front of the Kempinski hotel Friday night in Havana.

As Havana and Washington hash out a possible deal — which is likely to include some form of economic opening, and perhaps limited changes to Cuba’s leadership — many people here say they feel like pawns in a geopolitical game beyond their control.

Some, like those at the bar, who kept drinking in the dark after the power vanished, say they have little choice but to adjust to a life where flushing a toilet, cooking a pot of rice or riding a bus to work is now considered a luxury.

“The U.S. is trying to punish the Cuban government,” said one customer, named Rolando. “But it’s the people who are suffering.”

Cuba’s struggles long predate the oil embargo. For years, Cubans have complained of food shortages, crumbling public services and political repression. Demographers say Cuba is undergoing one of the world’s fastest population declines — a 25% drop in just four years — as birth rates fall and emigration soars.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel blames “genocidal” economic, financial and trade restrictions imposed by the United States in the decades since Fidel Castro’s army toppled the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

1 Young people play dominoes in the streets of Old Havana

2 A woman reacts to her granddaughter at a bar

1. Young people play dominoes in the streets of Old Havana. 2. A woman reacts to her granddaughter at a bar in Old Havana. (Natalia Favre/For The Times)

But many Cubans blame their own leaders for mismanaging the economy — and straying from the ideals of Castro’s revolution. They were raised to believe in an implicit social contract, which maintained that while Cubans might not have luxuries or be allowed all civil liberties, they would always have free education and healthcare, a place to sleep and enough to eat.

“The pact has failed,” said Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos Espiñeira, an economist at the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue in Havana.

He faults the government for soaring inflation and a misguided investment strategy that pumped money into the tourism industry while neglecting fundamental sectors like industry and healthcare.

“This is the worst moment in Cuba’s history,” he said. “But things were really bad before this.”

An aerial view of the Vedado neighborhood in Havana.

Life has long been challenging for Pablo Barrueto, 63, who works mornings at a construction site and now spends afternoons filling plastic jugs from a tap on the street and hauling them up narrow stairwells to neighbors who have been without water for weeks.

His two jobs barely enough cover food for him and his partner, Maribel Estrada, 55, who earns $5 monthly as a security guard at a state-run museum.

The pair, who live in a cramped studio apartment in a crumbling colonial-era building, can’t afford butter or mayonnaise, so breakfast is a piece of plain bread. Barrueto said he often goes to bed hungry. It has been years since he has tasted pork or beef.

“I work so hard,” said Barrueto, who on a recent afternoon was cooking beans in a pair of tattered jeans. “But I don’t see the fruits of my labor.”

Men fill plastic containers with water on a sidewalk.

Estrada has developed ulcers on her legs, but the doctor who prescribed her antibiotics said she wouldn’t be able to find them on the empty shelves of state-run pharmacies. On the black market, the medication was being sold for more than what Estrada makes in a month.

“If I lived in another country, my legs wouldn’t look like this,” she said, rolling up her pants to show the chronic sores on her calves.

Estrada said she was reaching a point where she would accept anything that would improve her life, even U.S. intervention.

“If things don’t get better, they should just hand over the country to Trump,” she said.

The U.S. has long played a major role in Cuban history, from its involvement in the island’s war of independence from Spain to the heavy hand of American companies in Cuba’s sugar industry. Washington repeatedly backed unpopular leaders who protected U.S. interests, including Batista, whose corrupt and repressive regime sparked support for the Cuban Revolution.

For decades, the island was celebrated by U.S. critics worldwide as a scrappy symbol of anti-imperialism and a utopic experiment in socialism. But in recent years, amid a government crackdown on dissent, some of that support has faded.

A man holds a booklet and cash wrapped in a small plastic bag.

The Trump administration’s bellicose new push to dominate Latin America with tariffs and military intervention has scared allies who in the past might have come to Cuba’s rescue.

Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, all led by leftists, have declined to provide emergency fuel shipments in recent months out of fear of angering Trump.

The current crisis was set in motion on Jan. 3, when the U.S. launched a surprise attack on Venezuela, killing 32 Cuban security guards stationed there — in addition to scores of Venezuelan troops and civilians — and capturing President Nicolás Maduro.

As the U.S. seized control of Venezuela’s oil industry, the impacts immediately rocked Cuba, which had long relied on subsidized oil shipments from Maduro’s regime.

Cuba’s leaders say the country has not received a single fuel shipment in three months, debilitating an economy that depends on oil to generate the electricity.

There is little relief in sight.

An employee of a grocery sells vegetables and other goods

A state-owned Russian oil tanker loaded with 750,000 barrels of crude is currently crossing the Atlantic. It’s unclear whether the U.S. will try to stop the ship from reaching Cuba, where the oil, once refined, could provide Havana with energy for several weeks.

At the same time, the “Nuestra América” humanitarian convoy is in the process of delivering more than 20 tons of critical supplies to Cuba, some of which will arrive by boat in the coming days.

David Adler, a general coordinator of Progressive International, a global leftist group that helped organize the flotilla, said he hoped the delivery of medicine, food, baby formula and solar panels would highlight the severity of Trump’s restrictions on Cuba.

“We’re beginning to come to grips with the fact that there will be mothers and children and elderly and sick people who will die simply as a result of this senseless and cruel and criminal policy,” Adler said. “Why are we inflicting such cruel punishment on a country that does not represent any threat to the United States?”

In Cuba, where many fear the prospect of no electricity come summer, with its muggy heat and swarms of disease-carrying mosquitoes, people are getting creative. With virtually no public transport and few drivers able to find — or afford — gas that costs more than $5 a gallon, many people have resumed riding bicycles. Others have fashioned electric-powered scooters into slow-moving taxis.

Four young people stand and sit in a dark street.

One man in the small town of Aguacate made headlines after he modified his 1980 Fiat Polski to run on charcoal, the same fuel many people here are now cooking with.

Camila Hernández, who works at Havana’s airport, had hoped to celebrate her 21st birthday at home with friends, eating and dancing. “It would have been wonderful,” she said.

But it had been weeks without regular electricity in the home she shares with her parents and boyfriend. His family’s home had power — but lacked water.

To avoid yet another night sitting in the darkness, she marked her birthday by strolling to the Paseo del Prado, an iconic boulevard not far from the waterfront cooled by a light sea breeze.

Her boyfriend’s mother, Yusmary Salas, 47, said poor living conditions were testing her patience. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without planning how I will flush the toilet,” she said. She said she is hungry for change, but has no idea what shape it will take.

Trump insists he “can do whatever I want” in Cuba, and recently said he expects to have the “honor” of “taking Cuba in some form.”

Such talk rattles many here who grew up in a country where government buildings still bear the revolutionary motto: “Homeland or death, we will prevail.”

Salas said she hopes that whatever comes next is peaceful, and that Cubans, long a proud people, have their dignity restored. And their power restored, too.

At the darkened bar in Old Havana, workers scrambled to light candles and serve beer that, without refrigeration, would soon go warm. Someone with a battery-powered speaker hit “play” on a song, the 2004 Daddy Yankee hit “Gasolina.”

“Dáme más gasolina!” they sang together. “Give me more gasoline!”

Politics

Schumer knocks Trump on Iran, plan to send ICE to airports: ‘Asking for trouble’

Published

19 hours ago

March 22, 2026

Press Room

Schumer knocks Trump on Iran, plan to send ICE to airports: ‘Asking for trouble’

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., condemned President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to U.S. airports on Sunday.

Schumer made the comments while speaking on the Senate floor Sunday, saying Trump’s decision is “impulsive” and could make the situation at airports worse.

“Today, Donald Trump and [Tom] Homan are saying they will deploy ICE agents to airports starting on Monday. This is really disturbing. ICE agents who are untrained and have caused problems everywhere they’ve gone lurking at our airports. That’s asking for trouble, and it will certainly make the chaos at the airports even worse,” Schumer said.

“No one has any faith in ICE agents. They haven’t received training. They don’t know what it is to be a TSA person and do what you need to do,” he continued. “And the real problem here is they have no plan for using these ICE agents. Trump says, send them there. They send them there. And Homan says they’re still drawing up plans with less than a day’s notice. What is this? We know what it is. It’s another impulsive action by Donald Trump.”

SCHUMER GAMBIT FAILS AS DHS SHUTDOWN HITS 36 DAYS AND AIRPORT LINES GROW

President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are clashing over funding plans for the DHS. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“Some idea pops into his head and he announces it. And then the people working for him, a few of whom do have some degree of talent and ability. Not many underlings. They have to rush to try and implement what they know is an idiotic plan,” he said.

The ICE deployment is Trump’s latest move in the battle with Democrats over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

Schumer also used his time on the Senate floor Sunday to criticize Trump’s actions in Iran.

“Donald Trump said, ‘you know, I may have a plan or I may not for a war,’” Schumer said. “There’s people’s lives are at stake. Billions are being spent on an almost daily basis. And he says, you know, ‘I may have a plan or I may not.’ These are the words of the commander in chief in the middle of a war involving one of the most dangerous regimes on Earth. ‘I have a plan, or I may not.’”

“That’s unhinged and dangerous. Lives are on the line. The president says he may not even have a plan. Tens of billions are being wasted. No plan. Troops being killed and injured, no plan. Civilians being killed and injured. No plan. Gasoline costs $3.94 a gallon on average. And Trump, ‘I have no plan’,” Schumer said.

Meanwhile, Schumer and his allies have refused to approve DHS funding without reforms to immigration enforcement.

TSA agents across the country have gone more than a month without a paycheck, with no clear end in sight.

Travelers wait in line at a TSA checkpoint at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas, on March 9, 2026. (Mark Felix/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump first threatened to deploy ICE to airports on Saturday, demanding that Democrats “immediately sign an agreement” to fund DHS.

DHS SHUTDOWN TRIGGERS TSA ‘EMERGENCY MEASURES’ AS LAWMAKER WARNS AIRPORTS COULD FEEL ECONOMIC PAIN

Airports across the country have reported huge numbers of employees calling out sick or not showing up for work. More than 400 TSA employees have quit their jobs.

TSA Agents scan luggage at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. (Valerie Plesch/Getty Images)

“On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job despite the fact that the Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard-line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all,” Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social.

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Trump also predicted blowback from Democrats, saying they would complain “no matter how great a job ICE does.”

Anders Hagstrom is a reporter with Fox News Digital covering national politics and major breaking news events. Send tips to Anders.Hagstrom@Fox.com, or on X: @Hagstrom_Anders.