He had gun, threatened to kill judge Kavanaugh: cops

An armed man has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly threatening to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh outside his Maryland home Wednesday morning.

Nicholas Roske, a 26-year-old from Simi Valley, Calif., “made threats against Justice Kavanaugh” before being taken into custody around 1:50 a.m., the Supreme Court said in a statement.

Roske, dressed in black and carrying a suitcase and a backpack, got out of a cab near Kavanaugh’s Chevy Chase home around 1:05 a.m. and made eye contact with two deputy U.S. marshals stationed outside, then walked down the street, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Daily News.

A short time later, Roske allegedly called 911 and said he was having suicidal thoughts, had a gun in his bag and had come to kill the associate justice.

The Montgomery County Police Department responded to the scene and took Roske into custody, according to the FBI affidavit.

Inside Roske’s backpack was a black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol with two magazines, ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, a screwdriver, a nail punch, a crowbar, a pistol light, duct tape and hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles.

Roske allegedly told detectives that he was “upset” about the leak of a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and that he believed Kavanaugh would vote to loosen gun-control laws, despite the recent mass shootings.

“Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice after finding the Justice’s Montgomery County address on the internet,” the affidavit reads.

The Glock was purchased for Wednesday’s plans, Roske said, first to kill Kavanaugh then himself.

The Supreme Court has not yet voted on whether or not to strike down abortion rights afforded by the 1973 decision, but a leaked memo published by Politico last month showed Justice Samuel Alito circulating a draft of the majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Peaceful pro-choice protesters paraded outside Kavanaugh’s house days later, as well as the homes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

President Biden “condemns the actions of this individual in the strongest terms, and is grateful to law enforcement for quickly taking him into custody” and “has consistently made clear, public officials — including judges — must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety or that of their families,” White

House spokesman Andrew Bates said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said such attacks are “behavior we will not tolerate.”

“Threats of violence and actual violence against the justices of course strike at the heart of our democracy,” he said. “And we will do everything we can to prevent them and to hold people who do them accountable.”

On Tuesday the Department of Homeland Security warned of a possible uptick in violence and the “continued heightened threat environment across the United States.”

“Threat actors have recently mobilized to violence due to factors such as personal grievances, reactions to current events, and adherence to violent extremist ideologies, including racially or ethnically motivated or anti-government/anti-authority violent extremism,” the agency said in a statement.

“Foreign adversaries — including terrorist organizations and nation state adversaries — also remain intent on exploiting the threat environment to promote or inspire violence, sow discord or undermine U.S. democratic institutions. DHS continues to assess that the primary threat of mass casualty violence in the United States stems from lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances.”

If convicted of attempted murder, Roske faces up to 20 years in prison.