Sister of US Supreme Court's Barrett target of bomb threat, police say

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -A sister of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the target of a bomb threat at her home in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this month, local police said on Wednesday.

Charleston police responded on Monday morning to an emailed bomb threat concerning Amanda Coney Williams, a lawyer whose sister is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, according to a police report.

"I've constructed a pipe bomb which I recently placed in Amy Coney Barrett's sister's mailbox at her home," the email said, according to the police report. "The device's detonation will be triggered as soon as the mailbox is next opened. Free Palestine!"

Local authorities determined it was a false alarm after inspecting the mailbox, police said.

Williams' husband told investigators that over the weekend someone had also attempted to have pizzas delivered to some households related to Barrett, the police report said.

Police said the investigation remains active. The U.S. Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment.

Barrett was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2020 during the first term of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump and has since joined several major rulings curtailing access to abortion and expanding gun rights.

But she has recently faced criticism from some of Trump's supporters, particularly after she joined a 5-4 decision on March 5 that declined to let Trump's administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government.

Reuters last week reported that U.S. marshals had warned judges of unusually high threat levels, according to several judges. Security has been bolstered for some judges assigned cases over Trump administration initiatives, Reuters reported.

Several federal judges in the Washington, D.C., area received pizzas sent anonymously to their homes, which was interpreted by law enforcement as a form of intimidation meant to convey that a target's address is known, Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the judicial security environment.

The Federal Judges Association in a statement on Wednesday cited the bomb threat targeting Barrett as it said it "remains deeply concerned about the rising threats and intimidation the judiciary faces."

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Kate Mayberry)