Hannah Bates writes for the Federalist about the source of physical threats against US Supreme Court justices.
Supreme Court justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testified before the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on July 14 to ask for a nearly $20 million increase in security after a landmark ruling session and amid rising political threats. Yet no one participating in the hearing seemed to acknowledge that the left is primarily to blame for the increase in such threats.
During the hearing, the justices and subcommittee members frequently referenced startling statistics on political violence towards judges across the United States. Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2024 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary noted that threats against judges across the U.S. have tripled in the past decade, and the U.S. Marshals Service investigated more than 1,000 threats against judges in the past five years.
“Those statistics sound abstract, but being on the receiving end of them is not,” Justice Barrett said. She recalled to the House having to wear a bulletproof vest on her way home after defending the Dobbs decision in 2024 and the disturbance that caused to her family. “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.
Barrett faced a recent swatting attack last month when police responded to a call claiming that gunshots were going off in the justice’s home. “One of my teenage sons opened the door … and saw [that] our street was full of police cars,” she testified before the House. “I was very grateful that I had Supreme Court police outside my home because they were able to stop and explain to the county police that it had been a false alarm.” …
… [T]he evidence makes it clear that political violence is not merely a “both sides” issue. The events of recent months and years have made it clear that political violence is particularly a problem on the left.
