U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Donald Trump’s criminal election subversion trial, was “swatted” over the weekend, according to multiple reports.
“Swatting” is a dangerous act of harassment in which someone makes a false call to police or other false law enforcement contact, claiming an emergency is in progress, in an effort to get a SWAT team to a location. Its use as a means of threatening a target is on the rise.
Journalist Anna Bower, the Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent for LawFare who is covering the Trump Fulton County case, reported the apparent swatting effort.
Judge Chutkan “may have been the target of a ‘swatting’ call tonight,” Bower wrote on X. “Police & fire services responded to a reported shooting at a home in D.C. They found nothing. Per property records, Chutkan owns the home.”
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The Messenger reports the audio had been posted to X but later removed. Some reports state it occurred Saturday night, others Sunday night.
“I’m not posting the audio from the dispatch here because it includes the address of the home that appears to be owned by Judge Chutkan,” Bower added. “But according to the dispatch, police who responded to the shooting report ‘thoroughly searched the area’ and found nothing.”
Howard University professor Dave Stroup appears to have been the first to report the swatting incident.
“I think someone just tried to swat judge in Trump’s DC case but got the address very wrong,” he posted on X. “Could be wrong on this but DC Fire and MPD responded to a call for a shooting with possible multiple victims at an address in the 16th Street Heights which is listed as the mother of the judge’s ex-husband.”
Recently U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu have been victims of swatting, Newsweek noted.