Ed Martin, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, on January 21 wrote to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY):
…I respectfully request that you clarify your comments from March 4, 2020. Your comments were at a private rally off the campus of the U.S. Capitol. You made them clearly and in a way that many found threatening. Your exact words were:
“I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
We take threats against public officials very seriously. I look forward to your cooperation…
We welcome this attention to Schumer’s illegal threats that were ignored by the previous U.S. Attorney and other Justice Department officials.
Also ignoring Schumer’s threats was the Departmental Disciplinary Committee of the New York Supreme Court.
We sought Schumer’s disbarment in a Complaint filed on March 6, 2020, only to be told that in July 2020 that “no action is warranted at this time.” The Committee responded to us with this:
While these comments were certainly concerning, the Departmental Disciplinary Committee is cautious about disciplining attorneys, whether local attorneys or public officials for comments that may be protected by the First Amendment.
Click here for our March 6, 2020 Complaint. Click here for the July 27, 2020 response. Click here for our August 5, 2020 appeal of the dismissal.
The New York Supreme Court exercised no such caution in July 2024 when it disbarred Rudy Giuliani for allegedly making “false and misleading statements” about the 2020 election. Nor did it give any deference at all to the First Amendment, even though Giuliani’s statements were his opinions about fraud in the 2020 election. This was speech most assuredly protected by the First Amendment, whether Giuliani was right or wrong. Guiliani did not threaten anyone.
The New York bar Complaint was filed jointly with the Senate Ethics Committee which, true to form, took no action.
Given the fact that Schumer broke the law, and that his threats were followed in June 2022 by an actual attempt on the life of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, let’s hope that Schumer is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.