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Threats Spur Security Push
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Congress that a “swatting” incident at her home in Fairfax County, Virginia, began when a teenage son opened the door and saw “a street, it was full of police cars” responding to a false report of gunshots and raised voices.
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Barrett said she was “very, very grateful” that Supreme Court police were outside her home so they could explain to county police that it was a false alarm and “so the police did not actually attempt to enter our home,” as the court sought additional funds to combat rising security threats.
In the same hearings, Justice Elena Kagan warned that the Supreme Court police expect a “38% annual increase in threats this year,” following a “25% increase last year,” and she said “For some of us, those threats have come very close indeed.”
The court’s budget request tied to the testimony included asking Congress for $228.4 million, with the goal of expanding personal details and security measures as threats increasingly encroached on justices’ personal and family lives.
Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, said judicial officers “must be able to do their jobs without fear for their safety or their family’s safety,” while Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said “Congress must provide sufficient funding to ensure the safety of all judicial personnel.”
Rhetoric, Ethics, and Docket
Kagan and Barrett linked the security pressure to political rhetoric and the court’s institutional role, with Kagan telling senators that behavior is “very dangerous to the court and to our whole system,” and she added that inflammatory statements are “really unhelpful” and potentially threaten individual justices’ security.
Barrett said some threats appear designed to intimidate the court and influence its rulings, telling Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, “It’s hard to say how some of them are not designed to do precisely that.”
The testimony also addressed ethics rules, with Kagan warning that a new ethics code that “does not have an enforcement mechanism” has contributed to a decline in public support, and she reiterated that she supports an enforceable ethics code.
Barrett said she was “less certain” than Kagan about an enforcement mechanism comprised of a committee of retired judges, but she later added in the Senate hearing, “I regard the ethics code as more than aspirational. I consider it binding on me.”
Both justices faced questions about the court’s emergency docket, including Kagan’s note that the court has tried “to do better in important cases,” while the process has become known as the “shadow docket.”
Budget Numbers and Threat Totals
As the hearings continued, the court framed its security request in specific budget terms, with the Supreme Court asking Congress for $228.4 million, an increase of $20.5 million over the previous fiscal year, while the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts funds the judiciary separately.
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CBS News reported that part of the funding request included an additional $14.6 million to expand security for the justices provided by the Supreme Court Police, which would allow for an additional six agents per member of the court, and it said the court anticipated a 38% increase in threats for 2026.
AP reported that the U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats in the government fiscal year that ended in September, and it said the total included threats to hundreds of federal judges even as the Supreme Court “has not been immune.”
Barrett described how threats affected her family directly, saying she had to take a bulletproof vest home and struggled to explain it to her 12-year-old son, while she also described being “very, very grateful” for residential security after the May swatting call.
The stakes were underscored by the court’s request to expand protection and screening, with AP noting the justices supported a request to increase security funding and CBS reporting that the Supreme Court Police expected the 38% rise in threats as the court sought more resources.
