Amy Coney Barrett says Supreme Court faces ‘really high’ threat level

Threats against Supreme Court justices have surged since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, with another 38% annual increase expected this year.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared on Capitol Hill Tuesday to testify about the “really high” physical threat level currently facing America’s highest court, and the toll it takes. CNBC reports that Barrett, along with Justice Elena Kagan, testified before the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government to discuss a requested $228.4 million appropriation request, a 10-percent increase the court says is necessary for improved security measures. U.S. Marshals Service data says there already have been 512 investigations of threats to federal judges in 2026.

“Those statistics sound abstract, but being on the receiving end of them is not,” Barrett said. NEW: Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett details the chilling threats her family has faced, revealing the terrifying moment her 12-year-old son discovered a bulletproof vest in her bedroom during the fallout of the Dobbs leak. Barrett also recounted a recent “swatting”...

pic.twitter.com/Cn6yG0VTYO — Fox News (@FoxNews) July 14, 2026 “My teenage son, one of my teenage sons, opened the door to go out with friends and saw in our street, it was full of police cars, who had responded to a false report of gunshots and raised voices in my home,” she revealed. “I was very, very grateful that I had Supreme Court Police outside my home because they were able to stop and meet with and explain to the county police that it had been a false alarm, and so the police did not actually attempt to enter our home.”

“Any of us, me included, have received threatening anonymous deliveries designed to intimidate and harass us,” she added. Barrett also discussed how the “rapid advancement” of artificial intelligence has increased cybersecurity attacks “by magnitudes [...] We haven’t suffered the kind of paralyzing attacks that some of the lower courts have, but in seeing that, that has caused us to try to ramp up very quickly our cybersecurity protection, and so some of the funding that we’re seeking is for additional cybersecurity experts.”

Appointed by Republican and Democrat presidents respectively, Barrett and Kagan often find themselves on opposite sides of judicial disputes but were in agreement on this subject. “The Supreme Court Police expect a smaller but still very substantial 38% annual increase in threats this year, which follows a 25% increase last year,” Kagan testified. “For some of us, those threats have come very close, and all of us live with the knowledge that they may again materialize.”

Barrett, the last of President Donald Trump’s three appointees and confirmed in 2020 to replace left-wing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has previously discussed the security challenges of serving on the nation’s highest court, such as having to regularly travel with U.S. Marshals. She has shared an anecdote in which her 13-year-old son came across the discarded bulletproof vest she had worn home and how his initial reaction of “that’s so cool! Can I try it on?” soon gave way to concern as to why his mother had it in the first place.

During her tenure, Barrett has been more moderate than conservative colleagues Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. But the fact that she voted with the conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 was all it took for pro-abortion activists to make her a target. When a leaked draft indicated the court’s decision on Roe a month ahead of its official release, a pro-abortion group calling itself Ruth Sent Us organized “walk-by protests” at the “homes of the six extremist justices” and published a map locating those homes.

The protests, which included chants like “no uterus, no opinion” (despite Barrett being female), violated federal law against “picketing or parading” with the “intent of influencing any judge” in or near “a building or residence occupied or used by such judge.” The Biden administration refused to condemn the choice of private homes as protest sites, and then-Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went so far as to praise the “righteous anger” of the protesters. The leak and subsequent ruling were also followed by numerous acts of violence, vandalism, and intimidation against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers and, most alarmingly, California man Nicholas John Roske arriving with a gun and ammunition to the home of Barrett’s fellow Justice and Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh.

In June 2022, 26-year-old Roske was indicted for attempted murder after allegedly taking a “firearm, two magazines loaded with 10 rounds each of 9mm ammunition; 17 rounds of ammunition contained in a plastic bag, a black speed loader” to Kavanaugh’s home, with intention to “to kill a specific United States Supreme Court Justice.” He was swiftly arrested without incident outside Kavanaugh’s home, after which he reportedly confessed to police “that he was upset about the leak of a recent Supreme Court draft decision regarding the right to abortion as well as the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.”

Last year, Roske was sentenced to eight years and one month in prison, far short of the 30 years prosecutors had sought, with U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman considering Roske’s “transgender” self-identification a mitigating factor in light of Trump’s executive order that gender-confused males not be housed with female inmates.