President Donald Trump has benefited enormously from the Republican Supreme Court he helped create. From overturning the Voting Rights Act and allowing him to restrict mail-in voting to helping him build his White House ballroom, the Supreme Court has repeatedly defied judicial precedent to advance the president's wishes.

Now Chief Justice John Roberts is paying a personal price for his work abetting the president.

"Chief Justice John Roberts' island escape was interrupted by protesters who arrived by kayak to stage a demonstration," Erkki Forster wrote Monday in The Daily Beast. "The Supreme Court justice, who has pleaded with critics of his ultra-conservative court to back off, learned earlier this month that even his private island retreat off Port Clyde, Maine, wasn't beyond the reach of protesters."

Forster added, "Arriving by kayak, canoe, and rowboat, the protesters staged a one-hour 'floating vigil' in the waters between Port Clyde and Hupper Island, where Roberts has a home, the Midcoast Villager reported."

The Daily Beast continued, "The protesters' signs declared 'The Roberts Court: Rubber Stamp for Fascism' and 'Roberts Benched the Constitution,' according to photos published in the Midcoast Villager. More than 20 people paddled out for the protest, while another 20 demonstrated on land, according to the Midcoast Villager."

The grievances the group cites track the Roberts Court's most consequential rulings. Roberts himself wrote the majority opinion in Trump v. United States, the July 2024 decision recognizing broad criminal immunity for a president's official acts, and the Court under his leadership ended federal abortion-rights protections with its 2022 Dobbs ruling. The protesters' reference to eroding judicial standards echoes the ethics controversies sparked by reporting on undisclosed trips and gifts accepted by some justices, which led the Court to adopt a code of conduct in November 2023 that includes no enforcement mechanism.

Roberts, who has previously complained about protesters not respecting the supposed sanctity of the Supreme Court, has not yet offered a comment on the incident. Demonstrations outside justices' homes became a recurring flashpoint after the May 2022 leak of the Dobbs draft opinion, when protesters gathered outside the Maryland and Virginia residences of conservative justices, including Roberts'. That June, an armed man was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home, and the Republican governors of Maryland and Virginia urged federal authorities to enforce 18 U.S.C. § 1507, a decades-old statute that bars picketing at judges' residences with the intent of impeding the administration of justice.

"The group said the purpose of the protest was to 'remind the community of the ways John Roberts has repeatedly used his elite power to mislead the nation, undermine the rule of law, erode judicial standards, harm workers, eviscerate women's rights, and place President Trump above the law,'" Forster continued. "The Supreme Court's Public Information Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment."

The floating vigil in the waters between the mainland and the island comes as the Court prepares to open its new term on the first Monday in October, and as Roberts continues to defend the institution publicly — including a rare March 2025 statement reminding critics that impeachment is "not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision."