The ongoing conflict between US President Donald Trump and the judiciary took a dramatic turn yesterday when Supreme Court Justice John Roberts issued an unusual public admonition to a sitting president regarding Trump’s call for the impeachment of a federal judge.
“Impeachment has been understood for over two centuries as an inappropriate reaction to disagreement with a judicial ruling,” stated Judge Roberts in a concise declaration.
“There is an established appellate review process for such situations.”
Judge Roberts’s remarkable admonishment came after Trump demanded the impeachment of District Judge James Boasberg, who had ordered a halt to deportation flights for individuals suspected of being illegal migrants over the weekend.
Supreme Court Justice John Roberts issued a rare public rebuke of a US president
This marks the first occasion on which Trump has personally called for a judge’s impeachment since his inauguration in January, labeling Judge Boasberg as a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and instigator who was unfortunately appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.”
“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges I am compelled to confront, should be IMPEACHED!!!,” he declared in a post on Truth Social.
Shortly thereafter, Brandon Gill, a Republican politician in Texas, announced via X that he had introduced articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg in the House, referring to him as a “radical activist judge.”
‘Extremely rare’ intervention
In response to Judge Roberts’s uncommon statement, Trump posted again to say: “If a President doesn’t possess the right to expel murderers and other criminals from our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge seeks to assume the role of President, then our Country is in serious trouble and destined to fail!”
Federal judges are appointed by the president for life and can only be removed via impeachment by the House of Representatives for “high crimes or misdemeanors,” followed by conviction in the Senate.
The impeachment of federal judges is incredibly rare, with the last instance of a judge being removed by Congress occurring in 2010.
District Judge James Boasberg ordered the suspension of deportation flights of alleged illegal migrants
Trump, who is the first convicted felon to occupy the White House, has a history of attacking judges who have presided over his civil and criminal proceedings.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, described Judge Roberts’s response as “extremely rare” and noted that the chief justice made similar comments in response to Trump’s criticisms of federal judges during his first term.
Judge Roberts was previously compelled to clarify that the federal judiciary does not have “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges, or Clinton judges,” according to Mr. Tobias.
Court hearing
On Saturday, Judge Boasberg ordered a suspension of deportation flights that were transporting alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to El Salvador for incarceration.
The White House cited infrequently used wartime legislation known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as its legal basis for this action.
A woman shows a photo of her son who was deported from the US to a Salvadorean jail
However, no evidence has been publicly presented to substantiate claims that the deportees were gang members or even in the country illegally.
Judge Boasberg conducted a hearing on Monday to determine whether the White House had willfully disobeyed his orders by proceeding with the flights.
Lawyers from the Justice Department informed the judge that over 200 Venezuelan migrants had already departed the US when he issued a written order preventing their exit.
They asserted that Judge Boasberg no longer had jurisdiction once the aircraft had left US airspace.
A guard gives directions to deported members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang at CECOT in El Salvador
The Justice Department had earlier submitted a motion to an appeals court seeking to have Judge Boasberg removed from the case, alleging he was interfering with the president’s lawful “conduct of foreign policy.”
In his Truth Social post yesterday, Trump remarked that Judge Boasberg “was not elected President.”
“I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT OPPOSING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION WAS POSSIBLY THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY,” he stated.
The Yale-educated Judge Boasberg was appointed to the DC Superior Court by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and later transitioned to a district court judgeship under Mr. Obama, a Democrat.
The White House has consistently lashed out at rulings it disagrees with, such as the failure of Trump’s efforts to eliminate birthright citizenship.
Trump’s endeavors to concentrate power in the executive branch have increasingly raised concerns that he may openly ignore the judiciary, potentially leading to a constitutional crisis.
