One judge had to build a safe room at home. Others were so scared they wouldn’t let their children play outside; another stopped grocery shopping and couldn’t attend his grandchild’s recital because of a 24/7 security detail. “I can’t leave my house at the same time or take the same routes” every day, the one with the safe room said, fearing that someone might follow behind.

Threats to the federal judiciary have skyrocketed under the second Trump administration, according to a new report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which interviewed 35 sitting and retired federal judges, many of whom requested anonymity.

Many of the jurists said the job had become more dangerous partly because President Donald Trump and his allies verbally attack them for decisions on high-profile cases, leading to a surge in harassment from other people: After overseeing a contentious immigration case, the judge with the safe room got more than 700 threatening phone calls to their chambers. Others said they were “pizza-doxxed”—someone anonymously had pizzas delivered to their houses with threatening notes inside, including messages with the name Daniel Anderl, a 20-year-old who was murdered in 2000 by a gunman while his mom, Judge Esther Salas, served on the federal bench in New Jersey.

“We sign up for this. We are public servants,” one federal judge told the Brennan Center. “But our children don’t.”

“Threats to federal judges’ safety have always existed,” the........

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