The simmering tension between the White House and the judiciary boiled over Tuesday as U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts publicly rebuked President Donald Trump for demanding the impeachment of a federal judge. In a rare move, Roberts asserted that judicial disagreements do not warrant impeachment, pushing back against Trump’s increasingly combative stance toward the courts.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts stated, emphasizing that the proper course of action is to appeal a ruling rather than seek retribution.
The clash erupted after Trump took to social media, railing against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who had blocked the administration from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members under an obscure 18th-century law. Furious over the ruling, Trump called Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic” and insisted, “This judge … should be IMPEACHED!!!”
This latest feud underscores the mounting friction between Trump and the judiciary since his return to the White House. His administration has repeatedly butted heads with courts that have slowed his aggressive policy moves, sparking concerns that defying judicial orders could become a flashpoint for a constitutional crisis.
Boasberg’s ruling halted all deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, even grounding flights already in the air. However, Trump’s team argued that two deportation flights had already departed before the judge’s order was finalized, a technicality that has only fueled the controversy.
Legal scholars have dismissed Trump’s impeachment demand as empty rhetoric. Judicial impeachments are exceedingly rare—only eight have succeeded in U.S. history, the last in 2010. Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler noted that “a lone erroneous ruling” has never justified a judge’s removal, reinforcing that Trump’s call to action is unlikely to gain traction.
Still, some of Trump’s Republican allies wasted no time responding. Texas Representative Brandon Gill announced he had introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg, a move that, while symbolic, faces steep odds. Even with Republican control of Congress, a two-thirds Senate majority is required to remove a judge—a threshold unlikely to be met.
Roberts’ rebuke echoes his 2018 defense of judicial independence when he famously declared, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” With the Supreme Court already grappling with multiple legal battles involving Trump’s administration, Roberts’ intervention signals a judiciary unwilling to back down in the face of political pressure.
As the power struggle between Trump and the courts intensifies, the question looms: how far is the White House willing to go in its crusade against the judiciary—and at what cost to the rule of law?
