In the days since his inauguration, President Trump has stretched government power to its limits in beginning to carry out his promised retribution campaign—even going so far as to politicize security agencies like the Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service. This politicization is a grave mistake and poses a real threat to our democracy by undermining the independence of government officials and signalling an endorsement of violence, as long as it aligns with Trump’s ends.  

Wielding its power over the Secret Service, the Trump administration revoked protective security details for several of Trump’s former advisors, including former national security advisor John Bolton and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley, for courageously speaking out against Trump or purportedly failing his new loyalty test. These decisions to remove security details were made with no apparent connection to the intelligence and risk assessments that should guide such a determination and despite recent reports suggesting that credible threats against these officials remain. Such careless actions jeopardize the safety of the very individuals who helped the president carry out his policies during his first term. And decisions about protecting current and former government officials impact all Americans, since security protections ensure that officials are safe to give their candid opinions on matters of national importance. 

The administration’s weaponization of law enforcement does not end there. While Trump removed protections for these officials, his allies in the U.S. DOGE Service (DOGE) allegedly threatened to use the nation’s oldest law enforcement agency—the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)—both to gain access to secure spaces at a federal government building and to pressure federal judges. This potential interference with the judicial process is not the only affront to the court’s ability to exercise a final constitutional check on executive power, as Vice President J.D. Vance and DOGE leader Elon Musk have gone so far as to suggest that they may not believe legally binding court orders always need to be followed.

The administration’s marked apathy toward security for government officials, reported willingness to use the USMS to coerce government action, and apparent indifference to law and order from the coequal branches of government is concerning for other reasons as well. First, the administration’s actions coincide with both increasingly volatile and severe threats against public servants and the sweeping pardons of hundreds of individuals who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol in Trump’s name. We have seen the catastrophic and deadly consequences of the president’s refusal to exercise his law enforcement authority to protect public officials with whom he disagrees, and these pardoned insurrectionists have openly stated their desire to seek retribution upon the people who held them accountable for their previous acts of political violence.

And of additional concern, the USMS is dually responsible to the executive and judicial branches. Although the USMS reports to the president, one of its primary functions is to protect federal judges and carry out judicial orders. Given the increasing number of threats faced by individuals in the judiciary, the administration’s willingness to use federal law enforcement to coerce action by other government officials, and indications that Trump’s “retribution campaign” is just beginning, we should be concerned by the executive branch’s control and significant discretion over judicial security. Below, we outline how Congress can help ensure that no president can jeopardize the USMS’s work or the safety, security, and independence of federal judges.

The critical work of the USMS

Congress installed the first marshals to assist in the operations of the courts when it passed the Federal Judiciary Act in 1789. Although the Supreme Court Police Department generally provides security for Supreme Court justices, the USMS serves as the enforcement and security arm for the rest of the federal judiciary.  It is a multifaceted agency that provides threat–based protective details, protects witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, defendants and members of the public, assesses potential threats to judges, maintains the custody and security of prisoners, provides security systems and equipment for the federal courts and manages thousands of contracted court security officers who provide physical security at courthouses. 

Structurally, the USMS is a bureau of the Department of Justice. The USMS receives direction from the attorney general, and the president has an “absolute right to remove” any of the 94 presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed U.S. Marshals. But while the marshals are directly accountable to the executive and serve several other law enforcement functions, the agency’s “primary role and mission” is to provide security for and enforce all orders of the lower federal courts. Given the USMS’s dual responsibilities, competing interests in the executive and judicial branches raise important questions about the USMS’s priorities and independence. 

Historically, when presented with orders that were difficult, or even dangerous, to execute, the USMS generally enforced them without question. In this way the USMS has made historic contributions in upholding the rule of law.  USMS’s continued adherence to this statutory mission will be critical at a time when high-level officials have indicated a willingness to disregard court orders and judicial independence depends on the USMS’s commitment to enforcing the court’s decrees.

Increased threats against the judicial branch

The necessarily public functions of an independent judiciary leaves judges and court officers particularly susceptible to increased risks and makes the USMS’s duties to the judiciary all the more critical. As part of his 2024 end-of-year report, Chief Justice John Roberts condemned the many hostile threats that judicial officers have faced as a consequence of simply doing their jobs and the security measures that have been taken in response, from the issuance of bulletproof vests to the assignment of full-time security details. 

In the past few years, high-profile examples of these threats have made headlines as the federal judge overseeing Trump’s election interference case received a voicemail declaring “we are coming to kill you,” the judge assigned to Trump’s civil fraud case was the victim of a bomb threat, and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the target of an alleged assassination attempt. Tragically, state and federal judges and their family members have also lost their lives as threats have escalated to violence. 

This “‘new normal’ of highly volatile behavior” and the USMS’s unique structure makes Trump’s previous language casting judicial officers as partisan rivals worthy of scorn especially alarming. While Trump himself hasn’t directly called for violence against judges, he has repeatedly and publicly made statements that elicited threats of violence against judges, their staff, and their families. And after New York state Judge Arthur Engoron issued two fines against Trump for repeatedly violating a court order prohibiting him from publicly disparaging courtroom staff, Judge Engoron warned of the “well-documented” violence that results from “heated political rhetoric.” With ever mounting threats against public servants, our democracy cannot afford any vulnerabilities in the system of protection for federal officials, including judges.

January 6 pardons and DOGE overreach increase urgency of independent USMS

Even more concerning than the potentially competing directions USMS may face is the current administration’s prioritization of loyalty over safety and its demonstrated willingness to mobilize the USMS against other government officials. Following Trump’s blanket pardons of the January 6th insurrectionists on his first day in office, some insurrectionists declared that the people involved in their prosecutions “need to feel the heat,” and that “[t]he hunters have become the hunted.” These statements were made not in a vacuum, but with the explicit knowledge that violence will be tolerated if it aligns with the president’s agenda. And the very person who pardoned these and hundreds of other insurrectionists is the same person in charge of the appointment and removal of the USMS officers who provide security for the prosecutors who brought, and the federal judges who oversaw, these prosecutions. That should be enough for Congress to act to ensure decisions about security are made without political influence.

But yet another threat to the USMS’s ordinary operations exists, as the DOGE, led by Elon Musk, attempts to co-opt the bureau for itself. In addition to DOGE’s threats to engage the USMS to gain access to government facilities, during the first week of Trump’s second term DOGE officials took the unusual action of exerting its influence over the USMS officers who were providing services in a federal courthouse. Apparently concerned that federal judges were not moving quickly enough to dismiss the remaining criminal cases against the January 6th insurrectionists, DOGE officials reportedly contacted the USMS, which then “visited the chambers” of several of the presiding judges. 

This extraordinary apparent attempt to interfere with the independent judicial process would be alarming even if the directive had come directly from the attorney general, to whom the USMS reports, or the president, who is the head of the executive branch. But the directive allegedly and confusingly came from the opaque yet seemingly all-powerful DOGE, which, according to the order establishing it, is charged with only the narrow task of “commenc[ing] a Software Modernization Initiative.” This aggressive overreach is a feature, not a bug, of an unchecked DOGE. So now, judges concerned with possible retribution from a president who was criminally charged in multiple federal courts must also wonder whether the leader of this ostensibly IT-focused entity will try to influence or usurp the USMS for its own goals.

Congress must step up to protect the judiciary

Congress should take action to ensure that the effective functioning of our courts is not subject to the whims of any president, or any of the president’s allies. Specifically, both chambers of Congress should begin immediately conducting oversight over the USMS to better understand the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s attempts to use federal law enforcement officers for their own political ends. 

Following the recent resignation of the former USMS Director, Trump nominated Gadyaces Serralta to serve as the new leader of the USMS. The Senate is responsible for providing its advice and consent for Serralta’s nomination, and the Senate must exercise this duty with rigorous scrutiny. Given the substantial role the director will play in ensuring that the USMS fulfills its statutory responsibilities to provide judicial security and enforce court orders, the Senate should exercise this power with the utmost attention to Serralta’s commitment to fulfilling these primary functions of the USMS, his qualifications for the position, and his faithfulness to the Constitution and to the office. The Senate must similarly exercise these checks for any other nominee for U.S. Marshal.

Congress should also reinforce the effective functioning of the USMS by appropriating sufficient funding for protection of the judiciary, and by ensuring that funding is used for the USMS’s primary purpose of judicial security. Last year, then-USMS Director Ronald Davis explained that the USMS’s work in protecting members of the court family had become increasingly complex over the past ten years, with an exponential growth in the use of social media leading to the USMS’s investigation of thousands of communications every year. He described the escalating threats against government officials and the resulting protection requirements as “unsustainable . . . given current resources.” And in 2021, the DOJ Office of Inspector General similarly reported that, in part due to “competing agency priorities,” the USMS could not provide adequate protective services for judicial officers.

Currently, Congress provides the judiciary funds to pay the USMS and the Department of Homeland Security for court security infrastructure and protection at judicial buildings, and also gives the General Services Administration funds to address serious security needs at courthouses. For the personal protection for judges, court officers, and other officials, however, the USMS uses its own salaries and expenses account, a general appropriation that also covers fugitive apprehension, prisoner security and transportation, the protection of witnesses, tactical operations, and detention operations. 

Although Congress has acknowledged the USMS’s “important responsibility” of protecting federal judges and has stated that it “expects the USMS to dedicate the requisite resources” for that mission, the USMS appears to have wide discretion in how to spend its money. Indeed, federal law requires the USMS Director to consult with the Judicial Conference about the judicial branch’s security needs, and to take these views “into account when determining staffing levels,” “setting priorities for programs regarding judicial security,” and “allocating judicial security resources” including the personal security of judges and the protection of all judicial personnel. But in the end, the USMS has “final authority” to determine “security requirements” for the judicial branch. 

At a time when the Department of Homeland Security has mobilized the USMS to help carry out mass deportations, and the president who ultimately is in charge of the USMS has demonstrated apathy, if not outright hostility, toward the security needs of individuals with whom he disagrees, it is critical that Congress ensure both adequate funding for judiciary security needs and that the USMS does not divert resources from its mission of protecting the judiciary. In past years, Congress has responded to increased threats by passing a law to protect judges’ personal information, permitting the judiciary to spend money on a judiciary-wide program for coordinating security services, requiring the USMS to participate in a pilot program for the protection of courthouses and the people on that federal property, appropriating additional funds to respond to threats to Supreme Court justices, and providing extra money for “courthouse hardening,” which the judiciary requested following the January 6th insurrection. 

Congress should continue to take steps to ensure that judicial security initiatives are fully funded, and as Congress prepares to make its funding decisions for the next fiscal year, it should ensure that proper controls are in place to prevent any improper diversion of funds away from the USMS’s primary mission. Congress should also investigate the relationship between the judicial branch and the USMS to identify strengths and weaknesses of the current system, with the goal of defending the independence of and protecting the individuals who support our justice system. 

Conclusion

The courts play a critical role in the administration of justice and the preservation of the rule of law, and the judicial officers who faithfully discharge these duties should be characterized not as political opponents, but as partners in democracy. It is imperative that both the executive and legislative branches ensure the independence and protection of these public servants. The Trump administration’s recent actions to politicize security undermine the rule of law and, as political extremism expert Peter Simi of Chapman University described, “underscore[] a broader crisis related to the declining legitimacy of US social institutions and the political divisions that are intensifying across the country.”

For its part, Congress must exercise its constitutional duty to carefully scrutinize nominees for these important offices and guarantee sufficient resources for judicial security. As for the president, in fulfilling his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws, he must also fulfill his “duty of protecting” judges who may face danger while doing their jobs.

Our democracy requires an independent judiciary, and the effective functioning of this coequal branch of government requires that judges and their staff make difficult decisions in the interest of justice. That judicial independence is undermined when judges face threats or fear of political retribution. Political violence has no place in our democracy, and it is incumbent upon both the executive and legislative branches to protect that independence. Our democracy depends on it.

FOIA requests

CREW requested records from the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service on what standards each agency considers in determining which current or former government officials receive a personal protective detail, the details regarding criminal contempt charges brought against USMS officials in 2021, and the communications, standards, and guidelines that govern the USMS’s provision of security for the federal courts.