Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered an emotional account Tuesday of how growing security threats have affected her family, telling lawmakers that the dangers surrounding her work have forced difficult conversations with her children that she never expected to have.
Appearing before lawmakers on Capitol Hill alongside fellow Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, Barrett urged Congress to provide additional funding for security measures protecting the nation’s highest court as threats against federal judges continue to rise.
Barrett, a mother of seven, described the personal impact of those threats while explaining that security concerns have become a daily reality for members of the Supreme Court and their families.
According to Barrett, threats against federal judges have increased by 38% in 2026. While statistics can seem impersonal, she said, experiencing those threats firsthand has had a profound effect on her household.
“And those statistics sound abstract but being on the receiving end of them is not,” Barrett told lawmakers.
She explained that the growing security concerns have exposed her children to situations she never imagined they would have to face.
“They have required me to — my children — to think about and see things that children should not have to see or think about,” she said.
Barrett then recalled a particularly emotional moment that occurred after threats against her intensified around the time of the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade in 2024.
She said members of her security detail sent her home with a bulletproof vest because of the heightened concerns surrounding her safety.
“My security detail sent me home with a bulletproof vest,” Barrett said. “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.”
The justice explained that her son immediately wanted to know what the protective vest was and why she had it.
“And he wanted to know what it was and why I had it,” Barrett said.
She admitted she found herself struggling to answer his questions, saying she had never expected that serving on the Supreme Court would require her to explain such dangers to one of her children.
“And I didn’t know how to respond, because maybe I lack imagination, but 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,” Barrett told lawmakers.
Beyond that personal experience, Barrett said she and other members of the Supreme Court have continued to face additional forms of intimidation.
She told lawmakers that many justices have received anonymous deliveries intended to harass or threaten them.
Barrett noted that some of those deliveries invoked the name of New Jersey Judge Esther Salas, whose son, Daniel Salas, was shot and killed in 2020 by disgruntled attorney Roy Den Hollander. Hollander later died by suicide.
“Many of us, me included, have received threatening anonymous deliveries designed to intimidate and harass us,” Barrett said, adding that the packages were sent in Daniel Salas’ name.
Barrett’s testimony came as she and Justice Elena Kagan appeared before Congress to seek additional funding for Supreme Court security, arguing that the increasing number of threats directed at federal judges has created growing safety concerns for members of the judiciary and their families.
