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The Supreme Court said Wednesday that an armed man who made threats against Justice Brett Kavanaugh was arrested near the justice’s house in Maryland.
The man was arrested about 1:50 a.m., court spokesperson Patricia McCabe said in an email.
The California man, in his 20s, was armed with a gun and a knife, according to a law enforcement official. The man, whose identity has not been released, arrived in a taxi early in the morning and told law enforcement officers he wanted to kill Kavanaugh, the official said.
The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The Washington Post initially reported the arrest, quoting sources who said the man also was carrying burglary tools. He told police he was upset by a leaked draft opinion suggesting the court is about to overrule Roe v. Wade, the court’s landmark abortion case, the Post reported. He was also said to be upset over recent mass shootings, according to the newspaper.
The justices have been provided round-the-clock security at their homes amid concerns about violence following the court’s ultimate decision.
There have been protests at Kavanaugh’s house in a Maryland suburb just outside the District of Columbia, and at the homes of other justices, as well as demonstrations at the court, where a security fence rings the building and nearby streets have been closed.
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When it comes to the real barometer of presidential truthfulness – keeping his promises – Trump is a paragon of honesty. For better or worse, since taking office Trump has done exactly what he promised he would do.
Trump kept his promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, something his three immediate predecessors also promised yet failed to do. He promised to “crush and destroy ISIS,” and two years later he is on the verge of eliminating the Islamic State’s physical caliphate. He promised to impose a travel ban on countries that he saw as posing a terrorist threat, and after several false starts the final version of his ban was upheld by the Supreme Court. He promised to punish Syria if it used chemical weapons on its people, and, unlike his immediate predecessor, he followed through – not once but twice.
Trump pledged to nominate Supreme Court justices “in the mold of Justice [Antonin] Scalia,” and now Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh sit on the high court. Trump also pledged to fill the federal appellate courts with young, conservative judges, and so far the Senate has confirmed 29 – more than any recent president at this point in his administration.
Trump vowed to pass historic tax reforms, and signed the first major overhaul of the tax code in three decades. He vowed an unprecedented regulatory rollback, with a strict policy to eliminate two existing regulations for every new regulation. In his first year, he achieved $8.1 billion in lifetime regulatory savings and is on track to achieve an additional $9.8 billion this year.
During the campaign, he told African American voters, “What do you have to lose? … I will straighten it out. I’ll bring jobs back. We’ll bring spirit back.” On his watch, African American unemployment reached the lowest level ever recorded, and his tax reform included a little-noticed provision creating “Opportunity Zones” to try to revitalize struggling towns and inner-city communities.
Trump promised to cancel President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, withdraw from the Paris climate accord, approve the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploration. He fulfilled all of those pledges.
On trade, he kept his promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and impose tariffs on steel and aluminum. He also committed to renegotiating NAFTA and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement – and recently signed new deals with Mexico, Canada and South Korea. He committed to imposing tariffs on China to force it to open its markets and stop its theft of intellectual property - and is following through on that pledge. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s trade policies, he is doing exactly what he said.
The president pledged historic increases in defense spending, and delivered. He pledged to bring back manufacturing jobs, and manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest pace in more than two decades. He pledged to sign “Right to Try” legislation to give dying Americans access to experimental treatments, and did. He pledged to take on the opioid epidemic, and will soon sign a sweeping bipartisan opioids package into law.
Where Trump has failed to keep promises, such as building the wall or repealing Obamacare, it has not been for a lack of trying.
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