On Tuesday, July 14, 2026, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan testified before House and Senate appropriators to seek more protection at work and at home. They argued that the security budget should increase by $14 million to cover rising threats, bringing the total proposed budget to $230 million. The Supreme Court Police expects threats to increase by 38 percent this year, up from last year’s 25 percent increase, according to Kagan.
In the hearing, the matter of the Justices’ safety took center stage. “Many of us, me included, have received threatening anonymous deliveries designed to intimidate and harass us,” Barrett said.
Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio asked Barrett whether she believes these threats are particularly designed to influence the rulings of the Court. She replied, “It’s hard to say how some of them are not designed to do precisely that … I think they’re designed to intimidate or designed maybe to punish after decisions that the person sending the threat didn’t like as a warning not to do it in the future.”
An example she shared was a particularly eerie anonymous set of packages: “It’s hard to interpret, particularly those anonymous deliveries that are sent in the name of Judge Salas’ murdered son, as anything other than an attempt to intimidate and influence decisions.”
In June 2022, a Californian was convicted of attempting to assassinate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in his home and received an eight-year and one-month prison sentence in October 2025, even though prosecutors had pushed for a 30-year sentence. In her opening remarks, Justice Kagan said, “For some of us, those threats have come very close, and all of us live with the knowledge that they may again materialize.”
Barrett shared that during the overturning of Roe v. Wade, “My security detail sent me home with a bulletproof vest and I carried it into my house, put it into my bedroom, dropped it down on a table, turned around, and my 12-year-old son was standing in the doorway of my bedroom — and he wanted to know what it was and why I had it, and I didn’t know how to respond,”
She explained that the security risks she faces often leave her and her family in a position where they have “to think about and see things that children should not have to see or think about.”
Kagan noted that Cabinet officials have more protection than Justices; “Sometimes you go someplace to an event … that there will be Cabinet members at, and I drive up in my one car and there are five cars outside for a single Cabinet member … So even now, I think that we have less protection than some.”
A decision from Congress is expected in response to the petitions from the Justices by Sep. 30, 2026.
