Washington — President Trump this week joined the growing chorus of calls to punish federal judges who rule against his administration. But impeachment and removal are unlikely under the current makeup of Congress.
The recent calls to impeach federal judges increased earlier this week when Mr. Trump posted on social media that a U.S. district judge overseeing his administration’s efforts to deport Venezuelan migrants suspected of being gang members should be impeached.
While the attack by Mr. Trump marked the first time he called for a judge to be impeached, his Republican allies and Elon Musk, a senior White House adviser, have for weeks been denouncing members of the judiciary who have been overseeing the myriad legal challenges to the president’s policies and ruled against the administration.
In the House, a small group of hard-right Republican lawmakers have introduced or signed onto resolutions to impeach four of those judges. While it’s unlikely the efforts will gain enough traction to result in their removals, they have reignited the debate over impeachment and the high bar for removal for high crimes and misdemeanors.
The president called for U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s impeachment in a post on social media Tuesday, saying without naming him that “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt continued the attacks on Boasberg and other judges who have issued preliminary rulings against the administration.
“The judges in this country are acting erroneously,” she told reporters during a press briefing. “We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slowwalk this administration’s agenda and it’s unacceptable.”
Leavitt said the president “has made it clear that he believes this judge in this case should be impeached.” She noted that the White House will comply with judicial orders and mount appeals of adverse rulings, as it has done so far but accused judges of undermining the will of the Americans who voted for Mr. Trump.
Freshman Rep. Brandon Gill, a Texas Republican, on Tuesday filed articles of impeachment against Boasberg after Mr. Trump’s post, alleging on social media that Boasberg “is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and should be removed from office.” Five Republicans have signed onto the impeachment articles as cosponsors.
Impeachment resolutions have also been introduced against U.S. District Judges Paul Engelmayer, John Bates and Amir Ali. GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia said last month that he was going to draft impeachment articles against U.S. District Judge John McConnell, but they do not appear to have been filed.
Under the Constitution, the basis for impeachment is “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” It’s highly unlikely any of the judges who are targets of impeachment resolutions have met that high hurdle.
As with presidential impeachments, the power to impeach, convict and remove judges falls to Congress. While the House has impeachment power, under the Constitution, the Senate is responsible for holding a trial to determine if impeached officials are guilty and should be removed from their post.
After lawmakers bring articles of impeachment in the House, the articles must be adopted by a simple majority for impeachment. The House then transmits the impeachment articles to the Senate, which has the “sole Power” under the Constitution to hold a trial that could lead to conviction and removal from office.
But the Senate has a high bar for conviction, with a two-thirds majority required. Although Republicans have a majority in the upper chamber, with 53 seats, that falls short of the 67 senators needed to find an official guilty and remove them from office.
How congressional leaders proceed to be seen.
White House deputy chief of staff James Blair told Politico that “it’ll be up to the speaker” to determine what can be passed and whether to pursue impeachment proceedings, while noting that the president is simply “highlighting a critical issue.”
“I think the president is right, we should impeach activist, partisan judges,” Blair said. “The question is, will that happen?”
House Speaker Mike Johnson would have a number of choices if lawmakers choose to force a vote with a privileged resolution, including bringing the impeachment articles up for a risky vote, setting up a vote to table the measure, or referring it to committee.
An impeachment resolution would be referred to the House Judiciary Committee for an investigation, where hearings would likely be held before advancing the impeachment articles before the full chamber. The panel’s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, told CNN on Wednesday that for House Republicans and the Judiciary Committee, “all options are still on the table.”
Impeachment proceedings would likely consume valuable time and attention that congressional Republicans are hoping to reserve for a massive budget package that would allow the president to implement much of his agenda.
Asked whether an impeachment trial could impede the White House’s agenda, Blair said he doubts “a bunch of floor time will be spent on something if they strongly feel like they can’t get the votes.”
Just 14 federal judges and one Supreme Court justice have ever been impeached by the House and eight were convicted by the Senate and removed from office, according to the Federal Judicial Center.
Republicans have introduced impeachment resolutions against four judges on the U.S. district courts after they issued preliminary decisions against the Trump administration.
Following Mr. Trump’s call for Boasberg to be impeached, Chief Justice John Roberts, the head of the federal judiciary, issued a rare statement rebuking the attack.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” the chief justice said.
While Roberts’ statement was rare, it is not the first time he has spoken out in response to heated comments from politicians.
In March 2020, the chief justice denounced comments from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, made outside the Supreme Court as “inappropriate” and “dangerous.”
“Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” Roberts said in the statement released by the Supreme Court.
In 2018, he pushed back against comments Mr. Trump made during his first term about a judge who ruled against one of his asylum policies. The president called the judge an “Obama judge.”
The U.S. doesn’t have “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them,” he said.
