An armed man was arrested early Wednesday near the Maryland home of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh after making threats against the Supreme Court justice, a spokeswoman for the court said.
The spokeswoman, Patricia McCabe, said the man, who was arrested around 1:50 a.m., was armed, but she did not specify what type of weapon he was carrying. The arrest was reported earlier by The Washington Post. In a statement, the F.B.I. said that it was aware of the arrest, and that it was working with law enforcement agencies.
The man, who is from California, was arrested without incident near Justice Kavanaugh’s house in Chevy Chase, Md., outside Washington, said Shiera Goff, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Police Department.
Ms. Goff did not say what the man’s intentions were or specify the type of weapons he had in his possession. The man did not make it onto Justice Kavanaugh’s property, she said.
“My understanding is he was in the area,” she said.
The U.S. Marshals Service said that marshals helped arrest the man.
Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said in a statement on Wednesday that he had asked Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in May to increase security outside the justices’ homes.
“I call on leaders in both parties in Washington to strongly condemn these actions in no uncertain terms,” Governor Hogan, a Republican, said. “It is vital to our constitutional system that the justices be able to carry out their duties without fear of violence against them and their families.”
At a news conference on Wednesday to discuss the investigation of the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month, Mr. Garland said that the threat against Justice Kavanaugh was “behavior that we will not tolerate.” He added that last month he “accelerated the protection of all the justices’ residences 24/7.”
“Threats of violence, and actual violence, against the justices, of course, strike at the heart of our democracy,” Mr. Garland said. “We will do everything we can to prevent them, and to hold people who do them accountable.”
There have been protests outside Justice Kavanaugh’s home and the homes of the other justices since a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion was published last month suggesting that the justices were poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guarantees the right to an abortion.
In a bulletin issued on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said that after the publication of the leaked draft opinion, advocates for and against abortion rights have “encouraged violence” on public forums, “including against government, religious, and reproductive healthcare personnel and facilities, as well as those with opposing ideologies.”
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, called on the House to pass a Supreme Court security bill that would provide police protection to the immediate families of the nine justices. The Senate passed the bill unanimously in May.
“No more fiddling around with this,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “Pass it before the sun sets today.”
Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said in a statement that President Biden “needs to personally and forcefully condemn violence and threats against Supreme Court Justices.”
“Thank God that law enforcement stopped this lunatic,” he said.
This is a developing story.
