03/21/2025 --dailykos
Republicans are dying to impeach lower court judges who have ruled against the Trump administration, an unprecedented attack on the judiciary. Meanwhile, over at the judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts is utterly unable to meet the moment. There’s a tiny problem with the Republican impeachment plan. Much like the president, federal judges can only be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” It’s right there in Article II of the Constitution. But Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas, cares nothing for your silly constitution and wants to impeach Judge James Boasberg for the high crimes and misdemeanors of issuing a ruling the administration doesn’t like. Gill is not a paragon of legislative accomplishment. Before coming to Congress this year, Gill was mostly known as an election denier and the son-in-law of fellow election denier Dinesh D’Souza. Gill has desperately tried to distinguish himself in the crowded field of GOP legislators willing to do unhinged things to get Trump’s attention. Hence, he introduced a bill that would remove Founding Father Benjamin Franklin from the $100 bill and replace it with President Donald Trump. Too bad that Rep. Joe Wilson, famous for yelling “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during the State of the Union, already introduced a measure to create a new $250 bill and slap Trump’s face on that. Just as he was not the first legislator who suggested debasing U.S. currency, Gill also wasn’t the first House member to call for impeachment of a lower court judge. That honor goes to Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, who introduced articles of impeachment against Judge Paul Engelmayer nearly a month ago because Engelmayer blocked the Department of Government Efficiency teens from burrowing into Treasury Department records. But Gill did win the race to demand Judge James Boasberg be removed from the bench because Boasberg blocked—or tried to block—the administration from summarily deporting over 200 Venezuelans who Trump alleged are members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Boasberg’s order to stop those deportations was met with outright defiance by the administration, which did it anyway. While Gill’s articles of impeachment say that Boasberg committed high crimes and misdemeanors, Gill’s appearance on Newsmax on Wednesday gave away the game. When asked what crime the judge committed that would fit under “high crimes and misdemeanors,” Gill came up with, “This is for usurping the executive’s authority.”xNEWSMAX: For impeachment you have to have "high crimes and misdemeanors." What crime did the judge commit?REP. BRANDON GILL: This is for usurping the executive's authority — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-19T15:46:46.502ZEven if it were true, which is definitely not the case, it’s unclear how that would count as a high crime or misdemeanor for which impeachment is appropriate. First, intruding upon the executive's authority, however that might irritate Trump, is not actually a crime. The remedy for Boasberg exceeding the bounds of his authority is that the administration gets to appeal to a higher court and argue about it there. By the time Gill drafted his impeachment articles, he had reworked his theory into a claim that Boasberg had “willfully use[d] his judicial position to advance political gain” and “attempted to seize power from the Executive Branch and interfere with the will of the American people.” Gill then said Boasberg had created a “created a constitutional crisis.”The House has rarely impeached judges, but usually, it does so when a judge is convicted of an actual crime, made false statements, shown improper favoritism, was drunk on the bench, or abused the power to hold someone in contempt. None of that happened here. All that happened is that Boasberg made a ruling in which he interpreted the Constitution and United States law to determine whether the administration should be temporarily blocked from deporting people. This was based on what can charitably be called a novel legal theory about the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which gives the president wide latitude to deport non-citizens during times of war. Prison guards transfer deportees from the U.S., alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 16, 2025.Trump says he has the sole authority to designate non-state actors, like Venezuelan gangs, as enemy aliens who have invaded, and we are therefore at war. Then, he can deport any migrant who he believes falls in that category without any due process. Judge Boasberg’s ruling, despite being spun by the right as massive overreach, was appropriately cautious. All Boasberg did was issue a 14-day temporary restraining order, freezing deportations for just two weeks while the parties continued to litigate. The notion such a minimal restriction on the administration’s actions constitutes a judicial overreach so outrageous is absurd. While Gill is doing the president’s dirty work over in the House, Trump is whipping the MAGA faithful into howling for Boasberg’s removal. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is bribing, er, donating to GOP legislators who back impeachment, just to remind them who really runs the show. All of this adds up to a pretty comprehensive assault on the integrity and authority of the judiciary. However, the man who has been head of the judiciary for nearly 20 years, Chief Justice John Roberts, could not muster even a few strong words about it. Here is the entirety of Roberts’ weak sauce statement:"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."This is a nothingburger. It doesn’t specify who is yelling for impeachment. It says nothing about how attacks on individual judges are beyond the pale. It doesn’t address the administration’s belief it is not bound by lower court orders. But the news media always grades Roberts on a curve, eager to pretend he is evenhanded rather than a staunch partisan who invented complete immunity for Trump. So they are calling this statement so short that it could fit in a tweet, a “rebuke” of Trump and an “extraordinary display of conflict” between the two branches. Trump certainly didn’t see it as a rebuke, gloating on Fox that, “Well, he didn’t mention my name in the statement. I just saw it quickly. He didn’t mention my name.” This is not the behavior of someone who is chastened, who intends to respect the federal courts, or who will stop calling for the impeachment of judges. Roberts has a front-row seat to the administration’s destruction of the constitutional order. He has the unique power to call this out in a meaningful way. Whether he’s unable to do so because he’s feckless or because he has no problem with the administration’s approach doesn’t matter. Either way, he’s helping deepen the real constitutional crisis we’re facing. Campaign Action