Two Supreme Court Justices will be on Capitol Hill next week to beg for cash for an increase in security needs.

Politico reported on Tuesday that Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan would appear before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees next week, requesting further funds for their security. The court has produced slick new videos showing off its security force as a kind of smaller secret service outfit with its own new tagline: “The highest court. A higher calling.”

"[W]ith little fanfare, the size of the Supreme Court’s police force has begun mushrooming. For years, the force sat at fewer than 200 officers, but now officials are aiming to more than double the ranks of the agents and officers who protect the justices and the Supreme Court’s building," the report said.

The push is likely coming from the increased threats to justices amid some of President Donald Trump's more public legal battles. Trump has faced off against state and federal courts, and last week the Court denied his request to review the verdict in a defamation case against him. The Court also struck down his executive order that would have ended birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Trump lashed out at the conservative court on Truth Social, saying the GOP justices have "gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for."

His hasn't been the only language of attack. Speaking to the Federalist Society, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom Trump has nominated to be his official AG, told a room full of lawyers in Nov. 2025 that the Department of Justice, indeed the whole Trump administration, is at “war” with federal district courts. He alleged “rogue activist judges” were at fault.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which oversees security for the federal judiciary, reported it investigated nearly 600 serious threats against federal judges in 2025.

So, it isn't unusual that the Supreme Court would be looking for help, too.

“The justices are averse to the intrusion into their personal lives that comes with increased security, but they are resigned to the need for it both personally and for the court as an institution,” a former court staffer told Politico.

The report assessed that the Court has never been as "central to the political system" as it has been recently. Politico described "it snarling the pre-election prosecution of Donald Trump, blocking the president’s tariffs [and] scaling back the Voting Rights Act" as a few examples.

It all comes as the Court remains largely secret to most Americans. The nine robed lawyers are never seen doing their jobs because cameras are barred from the Court. The new use of the "shadow docket" has left legal analysts questioning whether decisions they make are intended to be hidden. Even when justices read their rulings and dissents, there is no audio, much less video, and staff can't merely text colleagues with the details; a low-level news staffer grabs decisions printed on paper and races them to their bosses in the media.

In the past few years, Supreme Court approval has dropped as low as 39 percent last year and now stands at about 46 percent.

Calls for oversight and accountability for the judges persist.

"Court officials are loath to discuss the security measures being undertaken to protect the justices," the report said. "But the portrait of an institution straining to transform itself and its security apparatus comes into focus through an in-depth review of budget documents and videos posted on an officer-hiring website, as well as interviews with court insiders and little-noticed public comments by the justices."

Meanwhile, justices are complaining that the increased attention has led to drastic changes in their lives and in how they interact with the public. In some cases, the report said they must limit where they can go. It's a problem elected officials have dealt with for decades.

“We provide money for the Supreme Court,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro said in an April comment. “They’ve never come up and tell us what they’re doing with the money that we appropriate.”

Now, it appears they're en route.

The report goes on to talk about some of the security breaches that have left justices nervous. The current plan is to launch an ad campaign asking for more security staff and budget. They offer a starting salary of $86,000 with a $50,000 signing bonus if the police member signs up for 3 years of service or more.

Many MAGA Republicans exploded in anger when conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and three Democratic appointees — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — in Trump v. Barbara, which invalidated an executive order by President Donald Trump calling for an end to birthright citizenship. This wasn't the first time MAGA Republicans raged against Barrett, and an editorial by the conservative National Review calls out MAGA "abuse of" the Trump appointee.

Barrett has a decidedly conservative resumé, describing herself as an "originalist" and an admirer of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But her willingness to occasionally buck MAGA and vote with the Democratic justices is infuriating MAGA Republicans and Trump loyalists.

"Criticism comes, rightly, with the territory of being a Supreme Court justice," the National Review editors argue in their editorial. "Hysteria shouldn't. With the conclusion of the 2025–26 Supreme Court term and Donald Trump's defeat on birthright citizenship, we have been treated to another round of abuse from right-leaning commentators directed toward Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The immediate trigger of their ire is Barrett's joining the Trump v. Barbara majority (along with Chief Justice John Roberts and, on the outcome, Justice Brett Kavanaugh) striking down Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship."

The Review editors continue, "Barrett critics also cite her majority opinion in Watson v. Republican National Committee, which allowed states to accept ballots postmarked by Election Day for up to five days later, as well as her vote, along with Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch, to strike down Trump's 'emergency' global tariffs and her rulings against Trump in a few of last summer's torrent of emergency decisions on deportations."

On the MAGA far right, the conservative justice is often attacked as "Amy 'Commie' Barrett" — which is the type of rhetoric the Review is calling out.

"It's the intemperate vitriol of these attacks, and their utter lack of perspective, that appalls us," the Review editors lament. "Critics brand Barrett a traitor, a DEI hire and a left-winger who has doomed the country. They complain that she makes poor decisions because she is a woman and a mother of adopted children from Haiti. Perhaps more ominously, there is much muttering that future Republicans should fill judicial vacancies with fewer people devoted to the law and more who will be mere party apparatchiks, voting in the results-oriented fashion we traditionally associate with the liberal justices…. No, we don't always agree with her, or with the Court's decisions since her arrival in 2020 formed the current 6–3 majority."

The Review editors continue, "Nor, for that matter, do we agree every single time with any of her distinguished colleagues. The Court's cases are often hard, and its justices fallible. That's why there are nine of them."

Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the idea of being a swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court during an appearance in Arkansas on Saturday, despite cases where she’s split from the court’s conservative majority.

Barrett, who President Donald Trump nominated to the court in 2020, spoke for an hour about her work during an event at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority on the court, but Barrett has sided with the liberal justices on several key cases over the years. But Barrett said she doesn’t view herself as a swing vote.

“I don’t like that label because it makes me sound sort of flighty,” she said during the “Building Bridges” Q&A with Crystal Bridges Board Chair Olivia Walton. “You could say a lot of things. I don’t think I’m flighty. I think independent, or just following the law, would be the way to describe it.”

Barrett said that being a judge means that sometimes she’ll decide a case where she doesn’t like the results.

“I think that’s what it means to be faithful to the law and not try to align yourself with what people want you to do on the outside,” she said.

Barrett said that “spicy” dissents or sharp splits on the court aren’t an indication that justices don’t get along. When conferencing on cases, there aren’t loud arguments and justices do things to build collegiality, she said.

“I think when you only see someone as a package of ideas, especially if some of the ideas are ones you disagree with, it’s pretty hard like them, right?” she said. “But if you put the ideas aside and get to know someone as a person, then you can relate. Then you can put those things behind so the disagreements don’t dominate the relationship.”

When asked about artificial intelligence, Barrett told Walton the court doesn’t use it “because it would be insecure.”

“You can trust that our opinions are not AI-generated,” Barrett said, though she said her husband occasionally uses it for recipes.

Barrett, who has a daughter graduating from college and a son graduating from high school this year, said she would tell graduates to seek out people with whom they disagree.

“Make sure to give them grace and see people as humans,” she said.

President Donald Trump has previously fumed at the Supreme Court, which includes three judges he appointed, for differing from him on issues like his tariffs, his attempted suppression of mail-in ballots and his opposition to birthright citizenship. Now he has cited a right-wing commentator notorious for having been secretly funded by the Russian government to attack one of his own appointed justices, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

“Amy Coney Barrett is clearly terrified of the left,” Tim Pool posted in a comment that Trump shared. In 2024 Pool was discovered by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department to have accepted money from two RT employees, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, as part of their nearly $10 million plan to fund an unnamed Tennessee-based company that would influence American politics through pro-Trump commentators.

“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” Pool wrote at the time. “I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed.”

In addition to Pool the scheme included Matt Christiansen, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern and Taylor Hansen.

Speaking with this author for Salon in 2018, a former US ambassador to Russia who Trump offered to hand over to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Michael McFaul, questioned whether Trump has been compromised.

“The generous interpretation,” McFaul said at the time, is that Trump “didn’t understand what he was talking about. But let’s be clear: What Trump was doing was assigning moral equivalency to a legitimate indictment with lots of evidence against several Russian military intelligence officers for violating American sovereignty in 2016 during the presidential elections, with a completely fabricated, cockamamie story invented by Putin. To even, for a moment, give any kind of dignity to what President Putin proposed was not in America’s national interest, from my point of view.”

One of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominees voted against a big case that would restrict when mail-in ballots could be accepted — and MAGA is not happy.

The decision, which saw Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts side with all of the Democratic-appointed justices, ruled that ballots filed with Election Day postmarks can be accepted even if they arrive after Election Day.

Justice Samuel Alito complained: "Today’s decision leaves open opportunities for voter fraud that may further undermine Americans’ faith in the integrity of this country’s elections."

Zachary Donnini, head of data science at VoteHub, explained that only about 4 percent of ballots arrive after Election Day.

Republicans lashed out at both Barrett and the ruling in general, with a slew of complaints.

Sen. Eric Schmidt (R-Mo.) blasted it as "A shockingly wrong opinion."

He was quick to jump on the anti-Barrett bandwagon, saying, "Justice Barrett joins with the liberal justices to hold that federal election law does not preempt states that allow late mail-in ballots to be counted. This is terrible for election integrity. Another reason we must pass the full SAVE American Act."

"Amy Coney Barrett continues to disappoint in far too many high-profile cases," complained Article III lawyer Josh Hammer.

"BEYOND insane," conservative Nick Sortor complained. He added that because of this ruling California "can CONTINUE taking WEEKS to count ballots after Election Day." In fact, California is generally slowed not by late-arriving ballots but by signature matches for mail-in ballots, as Donnini wrote.

"Justice Barrett just sided with the Democrat justices to allow states to count absentee ballots received DAYS after Election Day. She is the biggest disgrace to the Supreme Court," bashed conservative Andrew Pollack.

"Barrett. AGAIN. WTF," asked Megyn Kelly.

"You would think with a 6-3 Conservative Court we would get the easy wins. But with Roberts and Barrett on the court nothing is a given," wrote Bill Mitchell.

Truth Social advisor Katie Zacharia wrote, "Barrett has been a disappointment."

President Donald Trump has suffered a number of legal defeats at the hands of judges, from having jurists reject his attempts to target political opponents to deeming his tariffs illegal. Now he has endured another setback at the courts, this time over his immigration policies and at the hands of a judge he appointed.

"JUST IN: A federal judge in Minnesota — Trump appointed chief judge Eric Tostrud — has rejected the administration's effort to force Minnesota to cooperate in enforcing federal immigration law," reported Politico's Kyle Cheney on Monday.

Trump's Justice Department sued the State of Minnesota, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Hennepin County and the county's sheriff by arguing that their implementation of "sanctuary" laws and policies that restrict local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement violates the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Chief Judge Eric Tostrud, who was appointed by Trump himself, dismissed the government entire case.

Tostrud found that the government could not prove that it should be able to preempt the Minnesota Constitution because its fundamental demands were too speculative; their accusation of a service-of-process defect against Minneapolis was characterized as a harmless delay; and every other claim was dismissed on their merits. Perhaps most importantly, Tostrud concluded that the government's argument violated the Constitution's Tenth Amendment, which has an anti-commandeering doctrine that protects state sovereignty.

Tostrud’s decision cited ample legal precedent to reach its conclusion. On one occasion, it pointed out that “the Federal Government may not command the States' officers... to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program." On another occasion it noted that “[w]hen questions of federalism are involved, we must distinguish between expectations and requirements."

It also rejected Trump’s argument that the local governments have an obligation to help federal officials, quoting precedent that “[r]efusing to help is not the same as impeding” and that “[a]n ICE detainer is a 'request,' not an order, for another law enforcement agency [to] hold a particular alien."

If precedent continues, Trump will likely be furious at Tostrud for ruling against him, as he tends to believe that judges he appointed are supposed to do his bidding.

“He is completely livid over the mail-in ballot ruling,” senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes said in June when the Supreme Court ruled against Trump on the issue of mail-in voting. “And of course, part of this is about the justices who decided to rule against him in this case. Just a reminder — this was the Republican National Committee challenging a Mississippi law that allowed mail-in ballots that came in after Election Day to still be counted.”

Holmes added that “if you look at the justices who voted against Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee, one of them sticks out in particular, and that is Amy Coney Barrett — whom President Trump himself appointed to the bench. Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated. We've reported multiple times that behind closed doors he has slammed Amy Coney Barrett, saying that she has not stepped up and has not done basically what he put her in place to do.”

President Donald Trump was dealt another bruising loss from the Supreme Court on one of his biggest political goals, and as one GOP strategist argued for MS NOW, the typical backlash from his MAGA supporters was "especially galling" this time around, and called into question the movement's treatment of the "moderate conservative woman."

As their term for the year came to an end, the court issued its hotly anticipated ruling in a case that would decide whether or not Trump had the authority to alter the definition of birthright citizenship, an idea that legal experts across the spectrum dismissed as beyond blatantly unconstitutional, given that Trump essentially attempted to invalidate the 14th Amendment without Congress. The justices ultimately ruled against him, but by a much slimmer margin than anticipated — 5-4 on the constitutional argument — raising alarms that conservatives may be encouraged to continue pursuing changes to birthright citizenship through different methods.

One of the justices in the majority for that ruling was Amy Coney Barrett, one of the three conservatives that Trump appointed to the court in his first term. Barrett has recently emerged as a conservative SCOTUS justice willing to break with the president on certain rulings, drawing considerable ire from his MAGA army as a result. This latest vote was no different, with various far-right voices calling for her to be removed from the court for her part in the birthright citizenship ruling, with some even going so far as to tar her as a "DEI" hire.

Writing MS NOW on Sunday, Republican strategist Susan Del Percio wrote that while "Misogyny in Trump world is nothing new," there was "something especially galling about" the reactions to Barrett this time around, especially from voices in the conservative movement that one might have expected to do better.

"Misogyny in Trump world is nothing new. But there’s something especially galling about watching a once trailblazing woman like former Rep. Nancy Mace call for Barrett to be removed from the bench in what feels like a desperate attempt to stay relevant," Del Percio wrote. "I didn’t see Mace, the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel in South Carolina, calling for the chief justice to be removed."

Del Percio further highlighted comments from far-right commentator Matt Walsh, who said in the wake of the ruling that "The worst Supreme Court Justices of all time have all been women" and encouraged future Republican presidents to avoid nominating women to the bench in the future. She summed up this comment as "ragebait, pure and simple," but also stressed that Walsh's obvious motivations do not "make it any less gross," and chastised Barrett's critics for not calling out the male justices who vote the same way as she does, and for exhibiting the same behaviors they have spent decades claiming to hate when coming from liberals.

"As transparent as his motivations might be, they still do come at a cost," Del Percio continued. "Barrett’s occasionally centrist legal opinions merely confirm the fact that she is, in fact, a principled and thoughtful jurist. But conservatives, who have spent the past decade heckling liberals about purity tests and cancel culture, are now demanding ideological subservience and judicial groupthink. And they are singling her out in a way they don’t seem to be doing with other conservatives on the court who sometimes side with liberals. Justice Neil Gorsuch, for example, joined Barrett and the liberal majority to strike down Trump’s international tariffs earlier this year."

She concluded: "When Barrett is demeaned by self-serving ideologues, every conservative, liberal and moderate member of the Supreme Court is diminished. America’s judicial system is one of our most treasured principles, and it is all of our jobs to defend it – not just when it is convenient, but even when we disagree with its conclusions."

The surprise passing of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham sent shockwaves through Washington D.C., but according to political analyst Rick Wilson, there are some unexpected reasons that the situation could become a nightmare for the GOP.

Graham, an outspoken ally of President Donald Trump after his rise to power and an advocate for his Iran war, passed away suddenly on Saturday evening, with reports later emerging that he had suffered an aortic rupture, which might have been worsened by his recent trip to Ukraine and a family history of heart disease. His seat has since been filled temporarily by his sister, Darlene Graham Nordone, with a primary to replace him on the midterm ballot now set to take place at a breakneck speed.

Though his seat may now be filled, his departure from the Senate is likely to quietly have severe consequences for the GOP. Willson, a former Republican political consultant turned vocal Trump critic, explained during a recent interview with Molly Jong-Fast that Graham was a key figure in helping Republicans muster the votes needed to pass legislation. Without him around now, he predicted that there would be new difficulties for certain votes.

"The thing to think about here is, without Lindsey Graham, who was on [the Senate Judiciary Committee], kind of the glue that held a lot of that stuff together," Wilson said. "Lindsey was the one who would go to the Susan Collinses and the Lisa Murkowskis of the world and say, come on, just help me out on this and I'll make sure you get something good out of voting [to confirm Brett Kavanaugh] or voting for Amy Coney Barrett... Help me help you, all that bulls——. That's gone."

Wilson suggested that now, without Graham around to muster votes, Trump might not have the support in the Senate to get Todd Blanche confirmed as attorney general.

"Lindsey had good relationships, let's be real, with Democrats and Republicans," Wilson added. "Even though he was a Trump ass-kisser from 2017 on, he had good bipartisan relationships. He could pull Democrats on some big things."

Graham was also notable for his willingness to speak with the press, often taking on the role of a messenger for Trump, translating and spinning his agenda into something more coherent and palatable.

Furthermore, while South Carolina is a staunchly Republican state, Wilson also suggested that Graham's death and the coming battle to replace him as the GOP's nominee could offer Democrats their one real shot at winning the seat, given that the likely candidates lack much of Graham's name ID in the state and will most likely lack the ability to get voters to give them a pass on certain shortcoming. He suggested that if the coming primary is ugly enough, it could turn voters against the Republican side of the ticket and give Democrats some unexpected momentum.

Defenders of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment breathed a major sigh of relief when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling in Trump v. Barbara, invalidated President Donald Trump's executive order calling for an end to birthright citizenship. The decision found the High Court's three Democratic appointees (Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson) agreeing with Chief Justice John Roberts (who wrote the majority opinion) and Justice Amy Coney Barrett (a Trump appointee) that birthright citizenship enjoys constitutional protection. Many MAGA Republicans are furious with Barrett, and Never Trump conservative David French believes that MAGA hatred of her is growing increasingly "dangerous."

As Barrett's critics on the far right see it, the arch-conservative justice betrayed Trump with her vote in Trump v. Slaughter.

In an early July conversation with fellow New York Times opinion journalist Emily Bazelon, French warned, "The MAGA backlash against Barrett is out of control. The justices already face threats. She was apparently swatted at her home in May, but this new level of vitriol — including attacking her multiracial family (she has adopted children from Haiti) — is making me nervous. In a word, MAGA has focused its fury on Barrett — some people even call her Amy 'Commie' Barrett — and that can be very, very dangerous."

Although Barrett — a self-described "originalist" and admirer of the late Justice Antonin Scalia — is far from a liberal and isn't a libertarian like retired Justice Anthony Kennedy (a Ronald Reagan appointee), she has, at times, showed a willingness to part company with MAGA.

Bazelon told French, "Barrett is a staunch conservative, but she has her own ideas. In her own way, she is as resolute about sticking to them as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who writes a lot of solo opinions."

The conservative French and more liberal Bazelon agreed that Trump v. Slaughter was much closer than it should have been.

French told Bazelon, "I'm both relieved at the outcome and worried that we won't move on from this debate. I'm concerned that the narrowness of the majority (there were only five justices who upheld birthright citizenship without reservations) will lead to a new Roe v. Wade-style litmus test for judges on the MAGA right. Will they try to nominate and confirm only those judges and justices who agree with Justice Clarence Thomas' lengthy dissent?"

Bazelon responded, "That is a truly dismaying possibility. The United States has benefited from the open arms of birthright citizenship in so many ways. It's the Statue of Liberty come to life. It helps immigrants integrate. Once you are born here, you are an American. The successive generations are an amazing engine of social mobility and accomplishment, in a way that other countries don’t match, because we have this rule. It prevents isolated enclaves of guest workers."

One of the most dangerous power players in the U.S. Supreme Court is at it again, wrote the New York Times in a report about the conservative Justice Samuel Alito.

Alito recalled in his youth his father tapping away on a calculator, trying to redraw electoral maps. All of that came to a head on Tuesday when Alito penned the landmark decision that struck another harmful blow to the Voting Rights Act. The decision ultimately makes it more difficult to bring racial discrimination challenges to districts.

But the end of Alito's career is leaving questions about whether he will retire, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint another far-right justice to stack the courts. According to those close to Alito, he has no desire to retire. But if Democrats take over Congress in the 2026 midterms, there could be a renewed call.

"People who know him say that he may not want to jeopardize the chance to have a successor who aligns with his ideology, and that he is mindful of what unfolded when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020," the report said. "Her death set off a confirmation scramble that allowed Mr. Trump to appoint her successor, the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, shifting the makeup of the court."

While Alito was quiet in 2024, the past year brought more of his opinions to the bench. It appears Chief Justice John Roberts has assigned decisions for Alito to author when the court intends to hand Trump a "win," said Stanford law school professor Pamela Karlan.

“It’s hard to think of an area where Justice Alito’s views do not align completely with the conservative legal movement,” she added.

In his opinions on the Voting Rights Act and anything to do with race relations, the Times explained that those appearing before him "will have to provide evidence of intentional race discrimination to prevail. The ruling prompted a Republican scramble to redistrict across the South, and likely handed the GOP an edge ahead of the midterm elections."

Alito, a constitutional law professor at Yale, Akhil Reed Amar said it's simply that Alito has greater seniority on the court and his outsized role is easily explained by that.

“It’s a seniority system, and you don’t get the plum assignments in your early years,” Professor Amar said. “The longer you’re around, the more you get to write opinions in big cases.”

Those close to Alito maintain that he remains engaged with the court, despite checking out a day early for their summer break.