CNN
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Police said Wednesday that the sister of Supreme Court sister Amy Connie Barrett was the target of a bomb threat at her Charleston, South Carolina home earlier this month.
According to a police report reviewed by CNN, Charleston police responded to the threat of politically charged emails sent on March 10 regarding Amanda Coney Williams. No bombs were collected at home. Williams is also a lawyer.
“I recently built a pipe bomb that I placed in Amy Coney Barrett’s sister’s mailbox at her home,” the email read. “A device explosion will be triggered as soon as the mailbox is opened next time. Free Palestine!”
According to Charleston Police, an investigation is underway. According to the first police report, Williams herself received the email, but later reports stated that she had never received a message. Police said an email was sent to the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office.
The threat came at a moment when federal judges across the country faced an increasing number of threats, increasingly accusing political rhetoric of their rulings.
Barrett, who was appointed to the High Court for President Donald Trump’s first term, recently faced criticism from conservative circles due to his recent vote on a procedural emergency order that required the president to quickly spend foreign aid money that the administration had tried to freeze. There is no indication that the threat of Barrett’s sister is linked to the incident.
Speaking at a public event in Colorado last year, Barrett explained that he was being sent home in a bulletproof vest, but he did not detail the reasons for the action.
The police report said the Williams family told investigators that someone had ordered the “households involved” of Barrett last weekend to pizza. A recent Reuters report shows that some federal judges have received pizza from their homes. Authorities interpret it as a form of intimidation.
A Supreme Court spokesperson declined to comment.
Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
