Serving on the U.S. Supreme Court often results in sacrifice for the families of the justices, but increasingly the sacrifice is of the Aztec variety. Left-wing activists are doing everything they can to threaten and immiserate the families of justices both to undermine their work on the court and to dissuade good people from taking the job in the future.
Last week, Justice Amy Coney Barrett was targeted in an attempted “swatting.” Someone falsely reported gunfire in hopes of provoking an armed police response. Given the presence of Supreme Court police protecting the justice, the stunt could easily have ended in tragedy.
This wasn’t a prank. It was intimidation. And it was only the latest example.
Since the leak of the Dobbs decision in 2022, conservative justices have been subjected to a sustained campaign of harassment unprecedented in modern American history. Protesters descended on their neighborhoods. Their home addresses were publicized. Their spouses and children have been treated as fair game.
The message is simple: Rule the wrong way and we’ll make your life miserable.
I saw firsthand how serious this threat has become. Following the Dobbs leak, while serving as counsel to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, I learned that Supreme Court police lacked clear authority to protect the families of justices. Protection details were effectively powerless unless the justice happened to be home. I brought the issue to Senator John Cornyn, who immediately went to work securing legislation extending protection to justices’ families. Those protections remain in place today.
The need for them became clear almost immediately.
Soon after this legislation, federal authorities arrested a man armed with a pistol, knife, zip ties and burglary tools outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home. He had traveled there intending to kill the justice.
Justice Kavanaugh undoubtedly understood that accepting a seat on the Supreme Court would bring criticism and controversy. What he could not have expected was that his wife and daughters would endure the spectacle of his confirmation battle – or become collateral targets in a campaign of intimidation.
The goal of such tactics is obvious: to get justices like Kavanaugh to ask, “Is this worth it?”
However, now the Left’s attacks are no longer limited to physical security. Increasingly, activists are trying to destroy the careers of the justices’ family members as well.
Recent reporting targeted Phil Alito, the son of Justice Samuel Alito, over his work in government. Phil is a highly credentialed lawyer who, like his father, has primarily engaged in public service in his career. The supposed target of the story was Justice Alito’s recusal decisions. The real target was Phil.
The same playbook has been used against Justice Barrett’s husband, Jesse Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts’s wife, Jane Roberts. Both are talented lawyers in their own rights.
Jesse Barrett is a preeminent white-collar lawyer, allowing him to pursue his profession and provide for his family without implicating his wife’s judicial role. This hasn’t stopped activists demanding “transparency” measures that would effectively make it impossible for clients to hire him.
Jane Roberts left legal practice after her husband joined the Court and built a successful career as a legal recruiter. Nevertheless, critics have repeatedly suggested that the Chief Justice should recuse himself from matters involving firms that pay her recruiting commissions – a theory that inevitably makes firms think twice about doing business with her.
These campaigns are designed to make it professionally and financially painful to be related to Supreme Court justices. Transparency has little to do with it; it’s economic lawfare.
Americans are free to disagree with the Supreme Court. They are free to criticize its decisions. What they are not entitled to do is threaten judges’ families or sabotage their livelihoods because they dislike the outcome of a case.
That is not accountability. It is the politics of personal destruction. And the consequences extend far beyond any individual justice.
And if serving on the Supreme Court means subjecting one’s spouse and children to relentless attack, fewer good people will be willing to accept the responsibility, which is precisely the point.
Those who care about judicial independence and the rule of law itself need to stand up to these attacks by the Left before intimidation and threats become just another accepted feature of our politics.
