Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett appeared before House and Senate committees yesterday to testify about upcoming Supreme Court appropriations, and security was addressed. It’s been a wild time for the court, which has been besieged more frequently by deranged leftists.
There was an assassination attempt against Brett Kavanaugh, and Barrett has been the subject of harassment, a recent swatting attempt, and a bomb threat against her family. It’s fueled by a mixture of liberal media insanity, Democrats going off the rails, and a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the third branch of government.
Yet, Collins decided to take time to cook Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who did hurl threats against the court
"A senator stood in front of the Supreme Court building and called out 2 members by name, saying they had 'released a whirlwind' and will pay the price,” she recalled for the record, accompanied by a picture of Schumer having a tantrum on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Other discussions throughout the day also arose from leaks, especially regarding the Dobbs decisions — we still don’t know who did it, which remains ridiculous (via Scotusblog):
The two justices found uniform bipartisan support for the increased security for the justices. Rep. Dave Joyce, a Republican from Ohio, declared that “judges should be able to do their jobs without fearing for their safety or that of their families,” while Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, pressed the justices about whether the court’s budget was “enough to avoid” having to use contract employees. It seems, Hoyer posited, like it would be important to have security details who know the justices and their routines.
Responding to Hoyer, Kagan told him that “you are speaking to the choir here.”
When asked about specifics of the justices’ security details, Barrett indicated that an individual justice’s security detail ranges from four to eight officers, while cabinet-level officials often have as many as 20. She said that “[w]hen officers drop me off at 11 at night and the same team comes back the next morning, it’s just a lot of hours.”
Kagan echoed this point, telling the Senate subcommittee that having a smaller detail creates “a lot of overtime” for those officers, as well as a “danger of burnout.” The optimal number, she suggested, would be “more like 12” people per justice. More broadly, Kagan said, the Supreme Court is “still looking for 100, 150 more officers. And that will take some time.”
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, decried the role of inflammatory comments about the court by members of Congress as creating security risks. It is “increasingly dangerous to be a Supreme Court justice these days,” she said, because of “rhetoric from public officials on both sides of the aisle” who “should know better.”
Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, also cited public statements by President Donald Trump after the court’s decision in February striking down the president’s sweeping global tariffs as “very dangerous to our court and the whole system.”
Kagan agreed that such inflammatory rhetoric, regardless of the source, was “dangerous” and “not appropriate.” Criticism of the court’s opinions, she said, is fair game, “but intimidation is a different thing entirely.”
Discussing rhetoric in the justices’ opinions, Kagan emphasized that she tries not to let her writing drift into personal attacks. She recounted how, after circulating a draft opinion, one of her colleagues will occasionally call and suggest that she delete a line from the draft – a move that she appreciates, she said.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, suggested that the leaking of information also “dramatically increases security risks.”
Kagan acknowledged that leaks from the court pose a security risk, but she saw a bigger problem: their effect on the dynamic at the court. If the justices cannot trust each other, she said, they can’t have “honest conversations” with each other. It’s “just not the way a court should operate.”
Shame on you, Chuck.