The Supreme Court may be deferential to President Donald Trump and the legal arguments put forward by his Justice Department.
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Court → put → Department
But when it comes to their own physical safety, the justices seem to view the administration with appropriate skepticism.
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justices → come → skepticism
The court is now ditching the longtime protection of the executive branch’s US Marshals Service, and instead creating a robust, in-house security force to guard themselves at all times.
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court → ditch → times
Though famously without its own army, the Supreme Court is building up its own police.
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Court → build → police
While the new security seems necessary, the change is also the product of the world the Roberts Court has built: one where the executive branch cannot be trusted, a violence-prone political movement has returned to power, dangerous people have readier access to firearms, and the justices decide the biggest political questions of the day.
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justices → seem → day
Historically, the marshals, housed in the Department of Justice, provided security to the justices, lower court judges, and federal courthouses, as well as to selected witnesses and lawyers.
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marshals → house → witnesses
In addition, the Supreme Court relied on a small police service, called the Supreme Court of the United States Police Department, to patrol its building.
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Court → rely → building
In recent years, its officers have begun to take up work once done by the marshals; this spring, the justices’ residential security details changed hands.
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details → begin → hands
Now, the justices are expanding the Supreme Court police into a sweeping force that can replace their longtime protectors.
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that → expand → protectors
The justices are seeking to rapidly grow the department, which numbered some 200 officers last year, to more than double its size.
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which → seek → size
The justices’ 2027 budgetary ask to Congress includes funds to build their own police command center, assess threats, and provide round-the-clock security to the court’s nine members.
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ask → include → members
To compete with other federal agency forces, including the Capitol Police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Supreme Court Police offers starting salaries between $86,530 and $147,928 with up to $60,000 in bonuses with a three-year contract, depending on experience.
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Police → compete → experience
It’s essential for our political system that the justices live and work free from fear and violence.
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justices → ’ → fear
“The security request is important and necessary,” says Gabe Roth, who runs Fix the Court, a nonpartisan group that advocates for reforms to make the Supreme Court more transparent and accountable to the public.
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Court → say → public
“They don’t want to be beholden to the whims of another branch, which is more political.”
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which → want → branch
It is not mere happenstance that the justices no longer trust the executive branch to protect them.
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justices → trust → them
Under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has embraced the unitary executive theory, cooked up by Republican lawyers in the 1980s, which gives presidents direct authority over everything carried out inside the executive branch.
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which → embrace → branch
The Republican appointed justices explicitly gave the president power over the Department of Justice in their 2024 immunity decision.
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justices → appoint → decision
While never technically independent, since Watergate, the DOJ had worked to keep its prosecutorial functions walled off from the White House.
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DOJ → work → House
But Roberts’ decision in Trump v. United States clarified that the attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer for the president, redirecting the office’s ultimate loyalty from the rule of law to the occupier of the Oval Office.
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general → clarify → Office
The result is that the Justice Department under President Donald Trump is increasingly unmoored from Congressional oversight and acting as the personal legal attack dog of the president.
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Department → act → president
By removing any taboo around presidential meddling in the department’s affairs, the justices more directly placed their own security in Trump’s hands.
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justices → remove → hands
The head of the Marshals’ Service reports to Attorney General Todd Blanche, who not only serves at the pleasure of the president but has described his department as being in a “war” against judges.
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who → report → judges
Trump, who has called Supreme Court justices “disloyal to the Constitution” and said some “sicken” him, is ultimately in charge of their personal security.
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some → call → security
It’s not hard to imagine Trump ordering the marshals to lighten security to apply pressure over a particular decision, or to withdraw it as a punishment for a ruling
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Trump → imagine → ruling
The concern is “probably 10 or 20 percent of the reason that this transition is happening,” Roth says.
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Roth → happen → reason
“They just want to have that control.”
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They → want → control
While the marshals struggled to meet demand under a stagnant budget since the Biden administration, the squeeze has tightened under the chaos of Trump’s corrupt and personalist second term.
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squeeze → struggle → term
As threats to judges ramp up—in part because of rhetoric from Trump, his deputies, and allies—the judiciary’s security needs have increased.
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needs → ramp → Trump
But at the same time, the marshals have been pulled onto Trump pet projects, immigration enforcement, and crime, depleting resources for protecting judges and the courts.
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marshals → pull → judges
The marshals were also assigned to provide a security detail to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr, an unusual arrangement that took staff away from the service’s core duties.
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that → assign → duties
Meanwhile, some of the justices were unnerved that officers showing up to protect their homes were sometimes only a few weeks out of training, according to Politico.
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officers → unnerve → Politico
In response to questions, the Marshals Service confirmed it provides security to Kennedy; its 2027 budget request includes an additional $34 million for judicial security and $228 million for immigration enforcement and local crime operations.
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request → confirm → enforcement
The Trump administration has also overseen more direct political weaponization of the marshals.
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administration → oversee → marshals
In March 2025, DOGE and an official from the State Department used the marshals to gain access to an international development agency they were attempting to dismantle, wielding the marshals against another federal agency.
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they → use → agency
“There’s some question of whether it falls under the marshals’ duties,” one expert told Mother Jones last year.
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expert → ’ → Jones
“You have an extragovernmental agency assigning marshals to do something that’s questionable in the first place.”
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that → have → place
Indeed, the marshals assisted DOGE, a rogue operation greenlit by the president alone.
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marshals → assist → president
(While the Supreme Court justices never weighed in on this particular Musk-induced skirmish, they generally abetted DOGE’s efforts, granting it access to Americans sensitive Social Security data while denying the public access to information about DOGE.)
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they → weigh → DOGE
In what may have been a signal of the marshals’ unreliability, this spring the Justice Department informed the Supreme Court that they would stop providing security at the justices’ homes before the Supreme Court police were expected to take over the job, sending the justices scrambling.
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police → inform → justices
…and 42 more, not listed.
