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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has issued a rare statement rebuking President Donald Trump for calling for the impeachment of a federal judge.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts, a conservative, wrote on Tuesday. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
The statement comes hours after Trump attacked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Truth Social for trying to block the administration from deporting Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvadorian prison without due process.
Trump ranted that Boasberg is “Radical Left Lunatic” who “was not elected President,” before demanding he be impeached. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY.”
Trump and his advisers have been ramping up their attacks on the nation’s court system as judges continue to block the president’s executive orders and other actions, many of which appear to be unconstitutional. The White House doesn’t seem to care.
Trump declared last week that it “should be illegal” to criticize judges, but it’s safe to assume the president meant those who rule in his favor. The administration has consistently attacked jurists who’ve ruled against his agenda. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “you cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president of the United States, that is completely absurd,” after a judge ruled that the administration had illegally fired thousands of federal employees.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration appeared to ignore Judge Boasberg’s ruling when they refused to turn around two planes of detainees accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The White House claimed that the planes “departed U.S. soil, U.S. territory before the judge’s written order,” and that the flights were out of U.S. airspace and therefore out of the judge’s jurisdiction by the time the order was received. The timeline of events remains in dispute.
On Tuesday, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against Boasberg, who issued the order. The impeachment resolution claimed that Boasberg’s order “jeopardizes the safety of the nation,” and abused his judicial authority to “to seize power from the Executive Branch and interfere with the will of the American people.”
Roberts’ statement on Tuesday is not the first time he has publicly rebuked Trump. In 2018, the he clashed with Trump after the president — then in his first term — referred to a 9th Circuit Court judge who blocked the administration’s attempt to refuse asylum applications from undocumented immigrants as an “Obama judge.”
Roberts called Trump out, writing in a statement that the United States does “not 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.”Trump responded via tweet, writing: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country.”
