Trump's latest attack unearths heartbreaking video of judge describing son's killing
Former President Donald Trump's recent attacks on the daughter of the man heading his New York criminal court trial has spurred a dark reminder that one of his supporters is suspected of having killed a judge's child before.
Video that went viral on X Friday shows New Jersey federal Judge Esther Salas detailing the moment Roy Den Hollander — an attorney who once tried to sue a slate of journalists over their negative coverage of Trump — is believed to have arrived on her doorstep with a gun.
"Danny turned around and he said, 'Let's keep talking, I love talking to you mom,'" Salas says in her interview with 60 Minutes. "It was at that exact moment that the doorbell rang."
This video began to circulate when George Conway offered a gentle fact-check to the New York Times' Maggie Haberman over a federal judge's television appearance Thursday to discuss Trump's social media messaging.
"I don't remember ever seeing a sitting judge go on TV before," Haberman said, sharing video of Senior Judge Reggie Walton's appearance on CNN. "A sign of the extraordinary moment the country is in."
Conway shared Salas' interview from 2021, and it swiftly spread across the social media site.
"My heart breaks for Judge Esther, nothing worse than losing a child, nothing, and then in this way," responded X user Lisa Todd Sutton. "Judges need the upmost protection no matter how much it cost[s]."
On another social media site, Truth Social, Trump has been repeatedly targeting Judge Juan Merchan's daughter by name over the course of several days, calling her "rabid" and accusing her of working at the behest of "crooked" President Joe Biden.
While the gag order Merchan ordered against Trump does not bar the former president from attacking the judge or his family, former prosecutor Joyce Vance noted Friday the former president knows the risk he takes with such words.
"The former president of the United States is attacking a judge’s kid," Vance wrote. "We’ve seen Trump do this with other judges. In fact, with pretty much every judge he’s had in a civil or criminal case, with the exception of Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, who is single-handedly preventing his trial on charges in the classified documents and obstruction case."
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Vance pays particular notice to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump's federal election interference case, and faced death threats from a woman who told her, “Hey you stupid slave n----- ... You are in our sights, we want to kill you.”
"When Trump paints a bullseye on a Judge’s back, his followers respond," Vance wrote. "He knows this."
What Salas knows is how it feels when a man with a gun rings the doorbell, she told 60 Minutes after her family's horrific encounter in July 2020.
After her son Daniel Adernl answered the door, the gunman fatally shot him and seriously wounded her husband Mark Adernl, she said.
"We were screaming, 'Daniel, hold on' and 'don't leave us,'" Salas said. "As I think about that day, I realize I was watching my only child fade away...It was something no mother should ever see."
Hollander, a self-described "anti-feminist" who called Salas “a lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama” in a self-published 1,700-page manifesto, died by apparent suicide shortly after the attack, the New York Times reported at the time.
Investigators later told Salas they believed she was the intended target.