An armed man who made threats against Brett Kavanaugh was arrested early on Wednesday near the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justice’s Maryland home, the site of protests by abortion-rights advocates in recent weeks, a court spokesperson said.
The man was arrested and transported to a police facility in Montgomery County in the Washington suburbs, court spokesperson Patricia McCabe said. McCabe did not identify the man.
Abortion-rights supporters have held protests outside Kavanaugh’s home and those of at least two other justices and rallied outside the courthouse since the May 2 publication of a leaked draft ruling showing that the court’s conservative majority was poised to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
The Washington Post reported that the man, who it said was in his mid-20s, was angry about the draft opinion.
“At approximately 1:50 a.m. today, a man was arrested near Justice Kavanaugh’s residence. The man was armed and made threats against Justice Kavanaugh,” McCabe said.
Kavanaugh, appointed by former President Donald Trump, has served on the court since 2018.
The U.S. Justice Department said on May 11 that it was increasing security for Supreme Court justices following the leaked draft opinion. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the U.S. Marshals Service to provide additional support to the court’s existing police force, the department said.
Abortion-rights supporters have held demonstrations in Washington and other cities since the draft was leaked, incensed that a right recognized for half a century was poised to be erased by the court’s increasingly assertive conservative justices.
The court building is now surrounded by high black fencing. A protester on Monday chained himself by the neck to that perimeter fence.
The draft opinion, authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito and published by the Politico news outlet, would uphold a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and overturn the Roe decision that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion.
