Texas woman is sentenced to 3 years in prison for threatening judge overseeing Trump documents case

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas woman was sentenced Friday to three years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of threatening a Florida judge who is overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Tiffani Gish, 50, of Houston, pleaded guilty in November to threatening U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. The Justice Department said Gish left voicemails threatening to kill the judge while claiming to be a member of several military combat units. She was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.

“Holding Tiffani Gish accountable for her threats to assassinate a federal judge sends a strong message that we have no tolerance for those – who often hide behind a far-off keyboard or phone line – seeking to undermine our democratic institutions by threatening the safety of the people who help those same institutions thrive,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani said in a statement.

Heather Hughes, a federal public defender representing Gish, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Friday.

Cannon has set a May date for the trial in which investigators accuse Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and hiding them from investigators. According to prosecutors, he also showed the documents to people without security permission and asked others to help him hide them. It is one of multiple ongoing cases against the former president, who is currently competing for the Republican candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.

Last year, another Texas woman, Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, was arrested and charged with threatening U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversees the federal criminal case against Trump for interfering with the 2020 election. That case remains ongoing.