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” against her and other federal judges “is really high” as she testified about the high court’s 2027 budget request.

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

Barrett, who was testifying with Justice Elena Kagan, also told the panel about being given a bulletproof vest by her security after a leak to a news outlet about an opinion that reversed the Supreme Court’s decision that had said there was a constitutional right to abortion.

Barrett also discussed having recently been the target of a “swatting” attack, in which a caller falsely told police that there had been a shooting and raised voices in her home.

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

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

The Supreme Court is asking Congress to appropriate $228.4 million for fiscal 2027, a nearly 10% increase since the $207.8 million appropriated for 2026. The increase reflects higher spending on security-related measures.

According to data from the U.S. Marshals Service, since the beginning of 2026, there have been a total of 512 investigations of threats to federal judges. That compares to 807 investigations of threats for all of 2025.

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