Chief Justice Roberts: ‘Personally directed hostility is dangerous, and it’s got to stop’
John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, during the formal group photograph at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, April 23, 2021. Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation by the Senate last year was a touchstone accomplishment for Donald Trump and congressional Republicans that solidified a 6-3 conservative majority on the court just eight days before the U.S. held its presidential election. (Photographer: Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — In a rare public appearance, Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday addressed criticism of the Supreme Court, the federal judiciary and individual judges, saying “personally directed hostility is dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”
He did not address any specific criticism or controversy, though the comments come at a time of heightened scrutiny of the court’s recent landmark decisions on presidential power.
“It does come with the territory,” Roberts said of criticism. “It can very much be healthy. We don’t believe that we’re flawless in any way. It is important that — important that our decisions are subjected to scrutiny, and they are. The problem sometimes is that the criticism can move from a focus on legal analysis to personalities.”
Violent threats against individual judges and justices have spiked, according to law enforcement officials. Four years ago, a man was arrested outside the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh with the intention of assassinating him. He was later convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Roberts was careful to say that no “one political perspective” is responsible for the threats, but that as they become more “personal” they “can be actually quite dangerous.”
“Judges around the country work very hard to get it right,” he said, “and if they don’t, their opinions are subject to criticism. But personally directed hostility is dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”
The remarks came on the heels of a fresh wave of criticism of the Supreme Court from President Donald Trump, who has accused Roberts and several of his peers — some of whom Trump appointed to the court — of being “disloyal” and “unpatriotic” after they ruled against his sweeping global tariffs program. Trump alleged on Monday that the court is a “weaponized and unjust political organization” that is “hurting our country.”
Trump has also singled out U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for intense criticism after Boasberg on Friday blocked the Justice Department’s subpoenas of Fed Chair Jerome Powell as part of a criminal investigation into his handling of a multibillion-dollar renovation of the Federal Reserve Building.
Last year, Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment after the judge temporarily blocked the administration’s fast-tracked deportations to Venezuela. The comments prompted a rare public response at the time from Roberts, who said in a statement that impeachment was not an appropriate recourse for a losing party in a case.
Overall, Trump has had a favorable track record at the high court during the first year of his second term, winning nearly every emergency request of permission to move forward with controversial policies being litigated in lower courts. He has also benefitted from a 2025 landmark ruling that limited the ability of judges to issue nationwide injunctions and a sweeping 2024 decision granting presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.
“I actually try not to read outside criticism too much,” Roberts told Rosenthal. “And it’s, you know, just because you’re on to something else, and you don’t want to worry too much about — you’ve done your best and that’s all you can do.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump ended his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday by unleashing criticism on Somali immigrants, whom he described as “garbage,” saying he doesn’t want them in the United States.
“You know, our country’s at a tipping point. We could go bad. We’re at a tipping point. I don’t know if people mind me saying that, but I’m saying it,” Trump said. “We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
He ascribed the same description to Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali American who represents Minnesota, who replied on social media that Trump’s “obsession with me is creepy.”
“I hope he gets the help he desperately needs,” she added.
Trump’s attacks on the American Somali community come as a major contrast to last year when he was campaigning for reelection and gained support from that voting bloc.
Trump was asked about why the Minnesota Somali community should support him during an interview with podcast host Liz Collin in July 2024.
“Because they want safety, they want security … they want security just like everybody else,” he said in the interview, which took place prior to a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which also has a sizable Somali population.
Salman Fiqy, a Somali American in Minnesota who emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal supporters within the community, spoke to the Sahan Journal in July 2024, about how he squared Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, including the 2017 “Muslim ban.”
“He rubbed us the wrong way,” Fiqy said in 2024, referring to Trump’s statements on Somali refugees at the time. “But I think the majority realize it was a political statement to rally his base.”
The president’s rebuke on the Somalian community, specifically those in Minnesota, came amid a back-and-forth between the chief executive and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who Trump called on to resign amid a reported welfare “scandal.”
The New York Times published an investigation last week on fraud allegedly perpetrated by Somali immigrants against Minnesota’s social services system. The Times’ account detailed law enforcement officials’ claims that over the past five years, “fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora.”
Critics reportedly said that some of that alleged fraud continued because state officials under Walz didn’t want to alienate the Somali population.
In response to The New York Times’ investigation, Walz said in a social media post Tuesday that he welcomes “support in investigating and prosecuting crime. But pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem.”
Trump has seized on the ballooning controversy in recent days as he also linked Omar, a longtime political foe, to the welfare dissension — something he’s also repeated in recent weeks.
Most Somalis initially arrived in the U.S. as refugees following the civil war in the 1990s with over 260,000 people of Somali decent living across the country, according to the U.S. census.
Approximately 73% of Somali Immigrants are naturalized citizens, according to the census.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters that the city is home to more than 80,000 Somali immigrants and most are U.S. citizens.
He pushed back against the administration’s rhetoric Tuesday afternoon and said the city would stand by the Somali community.
“It will be a practical inevitability that when people are arrested by federal immigration agents, they’re going to get the wrong people. They’re going to make mistakes,” he said. “They’re going to screw it up so badly that they’re not just violating habeas corpus, but they are taking away the rights of American citizens.”
Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric has also increased following the alleged shooting last week of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan national. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was charged on Tuesday with murder.
Tom Homan, the federal border czar, said on Tuesday that there will be an “increase” in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minnesota, but declined to give any insight into when that may happen.
“Yes, there’s going to be an increase of activity up there,” Homan told FOX News. “We’re going to hold people accountable. We are going to enforce the laws of this country without apology.”
Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman criticized the Trump administration for “othering” a population.
“Our Somali American neighbors — the vast majority of them U.S. citizens — deserve to feel safe in their own country,” he said on social media. “Why are some ‘othering’ Americans? Have we learned nothing?”
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin and Christine Cordero contributed to this report.
U.S. President Donald Trump tours the Ford River Rouge Complex on January 13, 2026, in Dearborn, Michigan. Trump is visiting Michigan where he will participate in a tour of the Ford River Rouge complex and later give remarks to the Detroit Economic Club. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon was expected to send additional military assets to the Middle East in coming days, according to several people familiar with the discussions, including possibly the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group.
Such a move is considered a typical precaution at times of heightened tensions because of the 30,000 troops stationed throughout the region in countries like Qatar, Jordan, Syria and Iraq.
The added firepower would serve as a deterrent to attacks by adversaries against U.S. bases. But it also would give President Donald Trump additional options to strike Iran later if he chooses.
Examples of assets that could be surged include an aircraft carrier strike group accompanied by cruisers and missile destroyers, as well as Air Force fighter squadrons and land-based air missile defense systems.
Discussions of the additional military assets come as Trump threatened to attack Iran’s government because of violent clashes with protesters. Officials in Tehran responded by threatening to strike back at U.S. bases if he followed through.
According to one person familiar with the discussions this week, Trump was told that a military strike against Iran could be extraordinarily dangerous and potentially risk the lives of U.S. service members in the region, particularly if the government in Tehran felt it was on the brink of collapse. NBC News was first to report this detail.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he opted against strikes for now because the U.S. had been told “on good authority” that the killing of protestors in Iran had stopped. Trump also said Friday that 800 planned executions in Iran had been halted, a claim that could not be immediately verified.
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied Tehran had any plans to execute protesters.
Several sources said there had been long-running concerns among U.S. officials that the military didn’t have the right mix of assets in place to protect against a potential massive retaliatory strike from Iran, given that Trump had surged much of the military’s force to the Caribbean to support the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
There is currently no aircraft carrier in the Middle East, although officials say there are six Navy ships, including three missile destroyers. The Pentagon declined to comment.
If the Lincoln is deployed to the Middle East from the South China Sea, it’s expected to take longer than a week to arrive. The USS Lincoln was spotted earlier this week on satellite sailing away from the Philippines.
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith (C) arrives to testify during a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former special counsel Jack Smith, testifying Thursday before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, said that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge President Donald Trump in his two investigations.
“Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him and, who wanted him to win the election. These included state officials, people who worked on his campaign and advisors,” Smith said of his election interference probe.
In seeking to challenge the results of the 2020 election, Trump was “looking for ways to stay in power,” Smith testified.
Trump was not “was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election. He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him, things that conflicted with him staying power, he rejected them or he chose not even to contact people like that,” Smith told committee members.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
Under questioning from Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Smith discussed the witnesses his team had interviewed in his election interference probe.
“There were witnesses who I felt would be very strong witnesses, including, for example, the secretary of state in Georgia who told Donald Trump the truth, told him things that he did not want to hear and put him on notice that what he was saying was false,” Smith said. “And I believe that witnesses of that nature, witnesses who are willing to tell the truth, even if it’s going to impose a cost on them in their lives — my experience as a prosecutor over 30 years is that witnesses like that are very credible, and that jurors tend to believe witnesses like that, because they pay a cost for telling the truth.”
Smith said that he got the phone toll records for some members of Congress because his office was investigating the conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
“We wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the matters, that were assigned to me, including attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records, to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith said, arguing that it was a normal piece of an investigation.
In a back-and-forth with Republican Rep. Darryl Issa, Smith said he didn’t target then-President Joe Biden’s political enemies.
“Maybe they’re not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden’s political enemies, weren’t they? They were Harris’ political enemies. They were the enemies of the president and you were their arm, weren’t you?” Issa asked.
“No,” Smith said. “My office didn’t spy on anyone.”
He said that the decision to bring charges against Trump was solely his decision and that he was not pressured by any Biden official.
“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” Smith said. “Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.”
In his introductory remarks, Smith also said the president illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“After leaving office in January of ’21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information withheld in a ballroom and a bathroom,” Smith said.
Smith said that the facts and the law supported a prosecution, and that he made decisions not based on politics, but the facts and the law.
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.
“No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said. “To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases, would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.”
He also criticized what he said was the retribution carried out by the president and his allies against agents and prosecutors who investigated the cases.
“My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” he said. “The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what test and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.”
In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan blasted Smith for what he called a partisan investigation into President Trump and other Republicans.
“Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did,” Jordan said.
Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said that Smith proved that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
“Special counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the public Integrity section. You acted based solely on the facts. The opposite of Donald Trump, who now is purporting to take over,” Raskin said.
Trump’s Thursday appearance marks Smith’s second time before the committee, after he appeared behind closed doors last month. It is customary for former special counsels to appear before Congress publicly to discuss their findings.
In his closed-door testimony, Smith defended his decision to twice bring charges against Trump — telling lawmakers his team “had proof beyond reasonable doubt in both cases” that Trump was guilty of the charges in the 2020 election interference and classified documents cases, according to a transcript of the hearing.
And Smith fervently denied that there was any political influence behind his decision — contrary to allegations of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who requested the testimony — such as pressure from then-President Joe Biden or then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, the transcripts shows.
“No,” Smith responded continuously to those allegations, according to the transcript.
Just over an hour before his testimony on Dec. 17, the Department of Justice sent an email to Smith’s lawyers preventing him from discussing the classified documents case, according to the 255-page transcript of the deposition, released last year by the Judiciary Committee along with a video of the hearing.
This meant Smith was unable to answer most questions on that case and the deposition — intended to ask questions about the alleged weaponization of the DOJ against Trump and his allies — mainly focused on the 2020 election case instead.
His team also said Smith will comply with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that blocked the release of the second volume of his report dealing with the classified documents case.
Smith’s counsel said the DOJ also refused to send a lawyer to advise Smith on whether his statements were in line with their determination of what he could or could not say regarding the cases, according to the deposition. Smith did say, however, that Trump “tried to obstruct justice” in the classified documents investigation “to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
