Come on, man. I mean, John Roberts is correct in this instance, but … still.
This started with Donald Trump making his displeasure known about activist judges in federal district courts interfering with executive authority. Judge James Boasberg had attempted to stop the deportation of Tren de Aaragua-affiliated criminal illegal aliens, which had already taken place. Boasberg held a hearing yesterday demanding answers from the government as to why his order was allegedly ignored, and apparently didn’t like the answers.
The Department of Justice didn’t like his approach either, and filed a motion to have Boasberg removed from the case:
The feds asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals Monday to remove Chief DC US District Judge James Boasberg from hearing a lawsuit involving the deportation of illegal immigrants who are reputed Venezuelan gang members after Boasberg set a Monday afternoon hearing to make the DOJ answer for allegedly flouting his order from the weekend. …
Since the case is about “flights that removed aliens identified as associated with a designated foreign terrorist organization” — any questions about what happened involves questions of national security and foreign relations and can’t be handled “in a rushed posture,” the letter says.
The appellate court didn’t answer the letter before the 5 p.m. hearing took place, with DOJ lawyers claiming they didn’t think they needed to follow Boasberg’s oral order to turn the flights around because it wasn’t included in his written order that came out after Saturday’s hearing.
A motion to remove Boasberg is a legitimate tactic, although not without risk. If the appellate court declines it, you’re stuck with an even more annoyed judge. One could also wait for a firm ruling, which could then be addressed in an expedited appeal. In extraordinary circumstances, a party could appeal directly to the Supreme Court itself for an emergency intervention, which has already happened once since Trump took office (in the Hampton Dellinger case, where the SCOTUS direction resulted in a reversal by the district court).
In short, there are plenty of legal options before resorting to political solutions. Regardless, and reflecting the demands from his supporters, Trump called for the impeachment of Boasberg and other jurists quick on the TRO trigger:
This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
Clearly, this is one of the moments in which Trump has to be taken seriously more than literally. Republicans might be able to advance an impeachment in the House, theoretically, but it would take months to accomplish. By that time, the appeal process would likely have already decided many of the issues involved in each of these challenges. And there is no way on God’s green earth that Republicans will get the necessary 14 Democrats to remove an impeached judge merely for the crime of angering Trump. Assuming impeachment ever happens in the first place, that is.
Basically, Trump was engaged in one of his favorite pastimes: venting. But it still caught the attention of the Chief Justice, who warned that loose talk about removing judges over legal disputes undermines confidence in the judicial process and the rule of law:
In an extraordinary display of conflict between the executive and judiciary branches, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected calls for impeaching federal judges shortly after President Trump demanded the removal of a judge who ruled against his deportation plans.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a rare statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Again, Roberts is correct, as far as he goes. There has been a consensus that judicial impeachments should be limited to incapacity or corruption, and that has largely held up. Until recently, though, it was also a consensus that presidential impeachments should involve incapacity or corruption too, and … that hasn’t held up nearly as well for the last 30 years. And especially lately.
That loss of confidence has nothing to do with the Supreme Court or John Roberts. However, the plague of district courts enacting nationwide TROs to block executive authority does. Roberts and his colleagues could intervene in such cases more quickly to deal with such challenges; half of the current court has pushed for decisive action already. The court could also require that such TROs come from the appellate level or in other three-judge combinations to put an end to judge-shopping, which everyone uses as a tactic these days. Thus far, though, the court has done nothing to curtail the lawfare that has been engaged to keep Trump from the full exercise of his legitimate authority and jurisdiction.
It’s one thing to say “trust the process.” It’s another thing entirely to act in a manner in which people can put their trust in it. Presidents shouldn’t go out of their way to undermine confidence in the judiciary, but Roberts needs to get more firm to put an end to the way the judiciary is involving itself in policy rather than law. He’s correct to guide us back to the path of the rule of law, but the rule of law in the judiciary had better include some reforms to curtail the game-playing that takes advantage of our customs for sheer political and ideological purposes. Maybe Roberts should focus more on that than on Trump’s vents on Truth Social.
