Supreme Court justices push Congress to boost security funding: "Threats have come very close"

Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett urged Congress on Tuesday to provide additional funding to enhance protection for the justices as they face a rise in threats, with Kagan warning that the "threats have come very close" for some members of the high court.

The Supreme Court is seeking more than $228 million from congressional appropriators, an increase of more than $20 million. Part of the court's funding request includes 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, according to budget documents.

The Supreme Court Police is anticipating a 38% increase in threats for 2026, Kagan said. For federal judges, there was a 57% rise in "security incidents of significant concern" in fiscal year 2025, according to the Marshals Service. As of July 1, there have been 370 threats to judges this fiscal year, and the Marshals have conducted 512 investigations, according to agency data. In the last fiscal year, there were 564 total threats to judges, the Marshals Service said.

"It is increasingly dangerous to be a Supreme Court justice these days, and it's appalling to me that some of the rhetoric is coming from public officials on both sides of the aisle who should know better than to levy personal and political attacks against the judiciary and the court specifically," Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who leads the Senate Appropriations Committee, said.

She cited comments from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2020, when he said of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, "you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price." Mr. Trump has also lobbed sharp personal attacks against Supreme Court justices, particularly after the high court struck down his most sweeping tariffs. The president said Gorsuch and Barrett, who were in the majority, are "an embarrassment to their families." He has also attacked some of the justices as "weak, stupid, and bad," and called them "fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats."

"Wherever these come from, and whatever political figure says them, whatever party that political figure is a member of, these statements are really unhelpful," Kagan said. "They're dangerous in terms of individual justices' security and they're not appropriate in the way to treat a coordinate branch of government."

"I didn't expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one," she said.

Several judges, including Barrett, have also been the victims of "pizza doxxing," where they've received anonymous pizza deliveries to their homes, she said. The pizzas are sent in the name of Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas who was shot and killed at their New Jersey home by a disgruntled lawyer in 2020.

Beyond protection at the justices' houses, the Supreme Court is also seeking $6.5 million for a facility to screen visitors to the high court outside of the building, similar to the Visitor Center at the U.S. Capitol. Roughly $2.3 million would go to cybersecurity, according to budget documents.