“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” said John Roberts, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court.
The chief justice of the US Supreme Court issued a rare statement on Tuesday rebuking calls from President Donald Trump and members of his orbit for the impeachment of federal judges who have ruled against the administration as it tramples the law to advance its far-right agenda.
“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,” said Chief Justice John Roberts, whom critics have long seen as an enabler of Trump.
As Jay Willis of Balls & Strikes noted earlier this month, Roberts “authored the opinion in Trump v. United States, a case in which the six Republican justices effectively ended the ongoing criminal investigations into Trump, clearing the way for his election victory five months later.”
“Before that,” Willis added, “Roberts was part of the narrow majority in Trump v. Anderson that declared that only an act of Congress could bar Trump from serving as president again, notwithstanding the Constitution’s explicit bar on insurrectionists holding public office that makes no mention of any requirement of a separate act of Congress.”
While Roberts’ brief statement on Tuesday does not mention Trump by name, it comes hours after the president took to his social media platform to attack the federal judge who issued an order barring the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
The Trump administration defied that order. In his social media post on Tuesday, Trump called Chief Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia — an Obama appointee — a “radical left lunatic” who “should be impeached”.
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) has filed articles of impeachment against Boasberg, who criticised the Trump administration during a hearing on Monday over its refusal to comply with his order halting the deportation flights to El Salvador.
The impeachment push against Boasberg is part of a broader assault on the federal judiciary by Trump and his allies, who have expressed outrage at recent rulings against the administration as it assails basic rights and attempts to unilaterally eviscerate government departments.
Axios reported on Tuesday that “top MAGA-world figures are leaning into a fight with the judicial system”. The outlet pointed to comments by former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, who said on Monday that “I think there ought to be a much broader swath of impeachments” against federal judges.
“We have to fight fire with fire,” Bannon said.
Axios added that “the Article III Project, a ‘brass knuckles‘ conservative legal group, launched a petition to build support for Congress to impeach the judge who ordered a halt to the deportations.”
Republished from Common Dreams, 18 March 2025
Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.