Sent to Fix the Court as a result of FOIA lawsuit; more expected later this month

An African safari. A week in London. Two weeks in Crete. And a constant police presence.

Documents that Fix the Court received from a 2024 FOIA request to the State Department — we had to sue to get them — highlight Supreme Court justices’ penchant for traveling abroad when they’re not pouring over briefs or writing opinions and show that the justices have security agencies worldwide working diligently to guarantee their safety.

In multiple cases, justices opted to leave town days or even hours into their breaks. Just nine days after Justice Jackson was sworn in as a justice in 2022, she and her husband Patrick traveled to the picturesque town of Mijas in southern Spain. And the day after a conference in Jan. 2025, Justice Barrett and her family flew to South Africa for a 12-day trip that included three days on safari in Kruger National Park.

Spain and South Africa are among the 11 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the U.K. being the others) that eight justices (all the active ones, minus Thomas and Kavanaugh, plus Breyer) had diplomatic security coverage during the nearly six-year period the request covered, from Jan. 2018 to Sept. 2024, per this first tranche of documents. FTC expects additional ones from State as soon as Apr. 29.

Our FOIA had two purposes: first, to identify any travel or other perks the justices may have omitted from their disclosures, whether because they were trying to hide them or because disclosure wasn’t required (e.g., it was vacation they paid for themselves or official travel paid for by a state or foreign government); and second, to ensure the nine are well-covered by security services when they leave the U.S.

Of the 16 justice-trips (11 with one justice, one with two justices and one with three justices), eight appear to have been vacations (Roberts in Ireland; Alito in Germany; Sotomayor in Canada [not 100% clear this one happened] and Greece; Kagan in the U.K.; Barrett in Ireland and South Africa; and Jackson in Spain), with only the Alito trip noted in any way in the press or in a disclosure, and eight included an official visit or law-related event (Roberts in Canada; Sotomayor in Switzerland; Kagan in Canada and France/Luxembourg; Gorsuch in France/Germany; Barrett in Italy; and Breyer in Canada and the U.K), all of which had press coverage, a disclosure mention or both, with Kagan’s French leg and parts of Barrett’s Italy trip including vacation time.

Regarding the eight vacations, it’s unsurprising that seven weren’t mentioned in the disclosures. Given the justices’ high salaries and overall wealth, it stands to reason that they typically pay for their own holidays, though recent times have seen some high-profile exceptions to that assumption.

Due to the threats against the justices, the more important question is who keeps them safe and how completely they are protected when they travel abroad. Our inquiry gained additional relevance based on an earlier FTC FOIA to the U.S. Marshals Service, covering Jan. 2018 to Sept. 2022, whose response noted that three justices stopped using USMS when they travel (i.e., “The USMS does not provide a protective posture for Chief Justice Roberts’ travel”; “The USMS has no [coverage reports] for Justice Thomas for the time period requested”; and that “there are no [coverage reports] for Justice Kagan for [Oct. 2019 to Sept. 2022]”).

The answer is that security responsibilities are divided up among various agencies. When Jackson traveled to Spain in 2022, she had coverage from USMS (whose remit is typically domestic, but they may be called in for international coverage), which also conducted a site visit in advance. When Roberts, Kagan and Breyer visited Canada in 2023, special agents of the Supreme Court Police’s Dignitary Protection Unit, with assistance from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, took the assignment. When Justices Gorsuch and Kagan traveled to France in 2024, the U.S. embassy asked that the French Interior Ministry send guards from the National Police. And when Justice Sotomayor traveled to Crete that year, the U.S. embassy requested that she “be under Hellenic Police’s constant supervision/control for all movements.”

For each trip, security was coordinated between representatives at the Supreme Court and officials at the State Department — often by someone whose name was redacted but was likely John Jasik, State’s judicial liaison for nearly five decades — who would then speak with colleagues at U.S. embassies abroad. Specific details about security protocols were often blacked out in the documents, most notably regarding Barrett’s 2022 Rome trip (81 days post-Dobbs), which had a dozen security-related paragraphs redacted and was rated as a “medium threat” by OSAC.

State was also concerned that the justices had constant Internet access, as both a Kagan and Gorsuch trip report included the following line: “The Justice’s responsibilities are ceaseless; being available to review emergency petitions for relief wherever and whenever the need arises.” (It’s more shadow docket on vacations these days than shaded docket.)

There was one instance in which security coverage was initially denied: a 2023 Breyer trip to the U.K. for vacation. Soon after it was planned, though, the retired justice added a visit to Israel, during which he scheduled official meetings, and that helped trigger a change in coverage. This line from State’s judicial liaison may have also helped: “ANY related [security] costs will be covered by the U.S. Supreme Court — no questions asked.”

As with all responses to FOIA documents, there are several omissions and redactions we’d like to know more about. For example, how did Roberts and Barrett go about snagging tickets for the 2023 Notre Dame-Navy football game in Dublin, and where’d they sit? Did Justice Kagan use a “VIP service” at Heathrow Airport, which in 2022 would have cost her upwards of $2,300? (“Most of the Supreme Court Justices we’ve assisted have just gone through regular channels,” though the “Chief Justice has used [the service] in the past, but the costs were certainly lower then!” a U.S. embassy staffer wrote.) Did Sotomayor end up taking a limo from Zurich to Bern in 2024 (75 miles), with “motorcade coverage” in both cities? (The only other trip for which a “motorcade” was mentioned was Gorsuch’s 2024 trip to Germany, with his destination at Max Planck being 45 miles from the airport he flew into.) How did the Barretts get from Cape Town to Kruger, 1,200 miles away?

Finally, it’s worth noting that the justices took several international trips from 2018 to 2024 that were not reflected in the documents we received, though it’s likely we’ll learn more about many of them when additional pages come in. (And, one document was withheld in full; we’ll ask about that later this year.)

According to their disclosures, Roberts traveled to Ireland in 2024; Thomas traveled to Bali in 2019; Alito traveled to Italy in 2018 and 2022 and to Switzerland in 2018; Sotomayor traveled to Portugal in 2019, to the U.K. in 2022 and to Austria and Panama in 2024; Kagan traveled to Canada in 2018 and 2022 and to Iceland in 2021; Gorsuch traveled to Italy in 2018, 2019 and 2022; to the U.K. in 2019 and 2023; to Iceland in 2021; and to Portugal in 2023 and 2024; Kavanaugh traveled to the U.K. in 2019 and 2023 and to Italy in 2022; Barrett traveled to the U.K. in 2020 and 2023; Kennedy traveled to Austria in 2019; and Breyer traveled to Canada, France, Ireland, Spain, and St. Kitts and Nevis in 2018; to Canada, France and the U.K. in 2019; to France and Switzerland in 2022, and to Greece in 2023.

Also this spring, FTC received documents from two USMS FOIAs related to security coverage, which are described here. Our most extensive FOIA haul on the justices’ travel, from 2024, is available here.