‘Very Ugly’: Federal Judge Who Defied Trump Tells 60 Minutes He’s Never Encountered Vitriol Like MAGA Fury

Federal Judge John Coughenour — who ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship — told 60 Minutes Sunday that he has never encountered vitriol and threats to his life as he has from MAGA adherents.

In his introduction, CBS News’s Bill Whitaker said he spoke with 26 federal judges for his story — “nine Democratic appointees, 17 Republican, both sitting and retired.”

Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, was one of the few who talked on the record.

After Coughenour ruled Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship to be “blatantly unconstitutional,” the judge said the threats started pouring in.

Coughenour told a story about being confronted by five sheriff’s deputies with long rifles who were called to his home on a tip he had murdered his wife.

“It was a cruel hoax,” Whitaker said, adding that the next day, Coughenour received a bomb threat. But, “it didn’t end there,” he said.

“There was a congressman that had a ‘wanted’ poster,” Coughenour said. ” It just said ‘wanted’ in big letters at the top, and then a picture of several of us. It said everything except dead or alive.”

Coughenour called the intimidation “very, very ugly,” adding that he has received dozens if not hundreds of death threats.

“Judge Coughenour told us threats come with the turf,” Whitaker said. “He has sentenced an Al Qaeda bomber and Montana militia members, and needed round-the-clock protection. But he said he’d never had as many death threats as with the birthright citizen case.

“I’ve been at this for 44 years,” Coughenour said of his career on the bench. “I have never encountered the hostility toward the judiciary that has existed in this country in the last year. And I don’t think it’s because we’re making bad decisions. I think it’s because there are people who think that they can make a lot of political hay out of criticizing the federal judiciary.”

Watch the clip above via 60 Minutes on CBS News.

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