U.S. Supreme Court's chief justice speaks out after Trump calls for judge to be impeached
John Roberts didn't mention Trump by name, but said calls to impeach judges are inappropriate
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts responded on Tuesday to President Donald Trump's attacks on a federal judge presiding over a deportation battle, rejecting the idea that impeachment is the answer for a disagreement with the jurist's rulings.
Roberts's rare statement outside chambers followed Trump's call on Tuesday for the impeachment of Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the administration on Saturday to halt the removal of alleged Venezuelan gang members, which Trump has argued is authorized by an 18th-century law historically used only in wartime.
"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 statement issued by the court. "The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."
Democrats and critics of the administration have expressed concerns the U.S. could be headed for a constitutional crisis as officials in the Trump administration, as well as the president, have made statements raising concerns over whether they'll abide by judicial orders.
Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, was the latest to do so, in a Fox News interview on Monday.
"We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think," said Homan, whose official title is executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, told CNBC on Tuesday that "there are many times when the interpretation of the law is erroneous" from trial court judges. He stopped short of recommending defying those orders.
Trump official responds to judge
Boasberg on Saturday in Washington, D.C., imposed a two-week halt to deportations under a proclamation by Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to declare that the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua was conducting irregular warfare against the United States.
In a Tuesday morning social media post, Trump described Boasberg as an unelected "troublemaker and agitator."
"I'm just doing what the voters wanted me to do," said Trump. "This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, should be impeached!!!"
In a court filing on Tuesday responding to Boasberg's request, Department of Homeland Security official Robert Cerna said three planes carrying deportees departed for El Salvador on Saturday after Trump's order was posted on the White House website that afternoon.
Only one of those flights departed after Boasberg's two-week ban hit the public court docket at 7:25 p.m. ET on Saturday, Cerna wrote in a sworn declaration. Cerna said everyone aboard that plane had separate removal orders, and thus were not deported under the Alien Enemies Act alone.
Threats to judges on the rise
As Reuters documented in a series of stories last year, political pressure on federal judges and violent threats against them have been rising since the 2020 presidential election, when federal courts heard a series of highly politicized cases, including failed lawsuits filed by Trump and his backers seeking to overturn his loss that year.
Trump then faced gag orders from more than one judge, as he battled both a civil defamation case and four criminal indictments, before completing his remarkable political comeback. Those criminal cases have fallen by the wayside since his November election win.
Roberts, in his annual year-end report in December, warned about a rising number of threats to the judiciary's independence, including calls for violence against judges and "dangerous" suggestions by elected officials to disregard court rulings they disagree with.
Reuters reported earlier this month that U.S. Marshals have warned federal judges of unusually high threat levels as tech billionaire adviser Elon Musk and Trump administration allies ramp up efforts to discredit judges who stand in the way of White House efforts to slash federal jobs and programs, according to several judges with knowledge of the warnings.
Musk has lambasted judges in more than 30 social media posts since the end of January on his social media site X, calling them "corrupt" or "evil," and deriding what he termed the "tyranny of the judiciary" after judges blocked parts of a federal downsizing measure.
"I've never seen judges as uneasy as they are now," John Jones III, a former U.S. district judge in Pennsylvania appointed by former Republican president George W. Bush, told Reuters.
While some Trump allies have been openly critical of judges, conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh was the target of an alleged assassination attempt in 2022.
Nicholas Roske, the accused, is set for trial in that case in June.
According to allegations, Roske travelled across country from California to Kavanaugh's Maryland neighbourhood, with the intention of killing the justice and then himself. He called a family member while in Maryland, and that relative then alerted authorities.
Roske allegedly told police he was upset by recent court rulings on abortion and gun control.
With files from CBC News