House of South Carolina Judge Criticized by Trump Administration Burns Down

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Police are investigating a fire that burned down the home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein, who had reportedly received death threats for weeks related to her work. "At this time, there is no evidence to indicate the fire was intentionally set," South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Chief Mark Keel told TIME in a statement on Monday, noting that the investigation into the house fire on Edisto Beach is "active and ongoing."

“I urge our citizens, elected officials, and members of the press to exercise good judgement and not share information that has not been verified,” Keel said. The fire began at around 11:30 a.m. E.T. on Saturday, sources told local news outlet FITSNews. Goodstein was reportedly not at home at the time of the fire, but at least three members of her family, including her husband, former Democratic state senator Arnold Goodstein, and their son, have been hospitalized with serious injuries. According to the St. Paul’s Fire District, which responded to the scene, the occupants had to be rescued via kayak. South Caroline Chief Justice John Kittredge told FITSNews on Saturday that the fire appeared to have been caused by an “explosion.” Keel, however, said on Monday that "SLED Agents have preliminarily found there is no evidence to support a pre-fire explosion." Keel included no other details.

South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein’s official portrait. The South Carolina Judicial Branch/sccourts.org

The 69-year-old judge had received death threats in the weeks leading up to the fire, multiple sources told FITSNews. Last month, Goodstein temporarily blocked the state’s election commission from releasing its voter files to the Department of Justice, a decision that was openly criticized by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon and later reversed by the state Supreme Court. The DOJ had sought the information, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and social security numbers, of over three million registered voters as part of President Donald Trump’s March executive order restricting non-citizens from registering to vote. (Non-citizens are already not allowed to vote in federal and state elections.) The Trump Administration has sought to drastically reshape the election system in the name of election integrity by requesting, and in some cases suing, states for voter registration data to compile a comprehensive centralized database. The Administration has sought data from more than 30 states and has considered pursuing criminal investigations into state election officials. Critics have argued that the Administration’s efforts are an attempt at disenfranchising voters from marginalized communities and overstepping states’ constitutional authority to control election procedures.

The Administration has also increasingly vilified the judiciary. Hours before the fire at Goodstein’s house, Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller accused U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of “legal insurrection” for granting a restraining order that blocks Trump’s deployment of the Oregon National Guard in Portland. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a post from his office that Miller’s accusation “for ruling on a case isn’t just reckless. It’s authoritarian propaganda, plain and simple.” (Miller has previously accused Democrats of using incendiary language to “mark people” for political violence.)