Supreme Court Justice Barrett says ‘the threat level is really high’

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett told a House subcommittee on Tuesday that “the threat level” to her and other federal judges is “really high” as she testifies about the high court’s 2027 decision. budget request.

“These statistics sound abstract, but being on the receiving end of them is not,” Barrett told House Appropriations. Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

Supreme Court asks Congress to appropriate $228.4 million for fiscal year 2027; This represents an increase of approximately 10% since the $207.8 million allocated for 2026. The increase reflects higher spending on security-related measures.

“I thought I’d share a little bit about how the threats have affected me and my family personally,” Barrett said before Justice Elena Kagan. “They asked me to make my children think and see things that children should not see or think about.”

“My security team sent me home with a bulletproof vest,” she told the panel, in the spring of 2022, as threats to her life escalated after a draft opinion reversing a 1973 Supreme Court decision saying there was a constitutional right to abortion was leaked to a media outlet more than a month later.

“I carried it into my house, put it in my bedroom, left it on the table, turned around and my 12-year-old son was standing in my bedroom door and wanted to know what it was and why I had it,” Barrett said.

“I didn’t know how to react because maybe I just lacked imagination, but I didn’t expect that performing this service would put me in a position to explain to my children what a bulletproof vest is and why I should wear one.”

Barrett, who was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump in his first term, has also recently spoken out about being the target of a “hack” attack.

“One of my teenage sons, my teenage son, opened the door to go out with his friends and saw that our street was full of police cars, raising voices and responding to false reports of gunshots being heard at my house,” Barrett said. he said.

“I was very, very grateful that the Supreme Court Police were in front of my house because they were able to stop and meet with the local police and explain that it was a false alarm and so the police didn’t actually try to enter our house.”

He also said that “any of us, including myself, have received threatening anonymous deliveries designed to intimidate and harass us.”

Barrett and Kagan are the first Supreme Court justices to testify before Congress since 2019. That year, Kagan and Justice Samuel Alito testified to the same subcommittee on the court’s budget request.

The two judges are scheduled to testify Tuesday afternoon. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

According to the data received US Marshals ServiceSince the beginning of 2026, there have been a total of 512 investigations into threats against federal judges. This compares with 807 threat investigations in all of 2025.