Roberts rejects Trump's call for impeaching judge who ruled against his
deportation plans
[March 19, 2025]
By CHRIS MEGERIAN, LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — In an extraordinary display of conflict between the
executive and judiciary branches, Chief Justice John Roberts rejected
calls for impeaching judges Tuesday, shortly after President Donald
Trump demanded the removal of one who ruled against his deportation
plans.
The rebuke from the Supreme Court's leader demonstrated how the
controversy over recent deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members
has inflamed tensions over the judiciary's role, with a legal case
challenging Trump's actions now threatening to spiral into a clash of
constitutional powers.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment
is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial
decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for
that purpose.”
The rare statement came just hours after a social media post from Trump,
who described U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg as an unelected
“troublemaker and agitator.” Boasberg had issued an order blocking
deportation flights that Trump was carrying out by invoking wartime
authorities from an 18th century law.
“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,” Trump wrote on his social media
platform, Truth Social. “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!!!”
Although Trump has routinely criticized judges, especially as they limit
his efforts to expand presidential power, his latest post escalated his
conflict with a judiciary that’s been one of the few restraints on his
aggressive agenda. Impeachment is a rare step that is usually taken only
in cases of grave ethical or criminal misconduct.
In an interview with Fox News later on Tuesday, Trump emphasized that
Roberts “didn't mention my name in his statement,” suggesting that the
chief justice could have been referring to other people who have said
Boasberg should be impeached.
Trump said Boasberg had overstepped his authority by interfering with
deportation plans.
“That's a presidential job," he said. "That's not for a local judge to
be making that determination.”
Trump said he would not ignore a court order, a step that his
administration has already been accused of taking.
“No, you can't do that. However, we have bad judges,” Trump said. He
added that “at a certain point, you have to start looking at what do you
do when you have a rogue judge.”
The relationship between Roberts and Trump has shifted through the
years. Roberts emphasized judicial independence during Trump's first
term, taking issue with the president’s description of a judge who
rejected his migrant asylum policy as an “Obama judge" in 2018.
Before Trump was sworn in for his second term, Roberts warned against
threats to the judiciary and called for even unpopular court decisions
to be respected.
The chief justice also had a prominent role in a major ruling last year
that said presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution. The
decision helped Trump avoid one of his criminal trials before the
election that returned him to the White House.
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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts speaks at the
University of Nebraska Lincoln, in Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 19, 2014.
(AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)
Trump greeted Roberts warmly earlier this month, thanking him and
saying, “I won’t forget,” as the justices attended his address to a
joint session of Congress. The president said later he was thanking
Roberts for swearing him into office.
The latest dispute involving the judiciary comes after a court
challenged his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. It has
been used only three times before in U.S. history, all during
congressionally declared wars. Trump issued a proclamation that the
law was newly in effect due to what he claimed was an invasion by
the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. His administration is paying El
Salvador to imprison alleged members of the gang.
Boasberg, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, convened a
hearing on Monday to discuss what he called “possible defiance” of
his order after two deportation flights continued to El Salvador
despite his verbal order that they be turned around to the U.S.
Trump administration lawyers defended their actions, saying
Boasberg's written order wasn't explicit, while an attorney for the
American Civil Liberties Union said “I think we're getting very
close” to a constitutional crisis.
The Justice Department is also pushing in court to have Boasberg
removed from the case.
The Constitution gives the House of Representatives, where
Republicans hold a slim majority, the power to impeach a judge with
a simple majority vote. But, like a presidential impeachment, any
removal requires a vote from a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
The president’s latest social media post aligns him more with allies
like billionaire Elon Musk, who has made similar demands.
“What we are seeing is an attempt by one branch of government to
intimidate another branch from performing its constitutional duty.
It is a direct threat to judicial independence,” Marin Levy, a Duke
University School of Law professor who specializes in the federal
courts, said in an email.
Only one day earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt
said, “I have not heard the president talk about impeaching judges.”
Just 15 judges have been impeached in the nation’s history,
according to the U.S. court's governing body, and just eight have
been removed.
The last judicial impeachment was in 2010. G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of
New Orleans was impeached on charges he accepted bribes and then
lied about it. He was convicted by the Senate and removed from
office in December 2010.
Calls to impeach judges have been rising as Trump’s sweeping agenda
faces pushback in the courts, and at least two members of Congress
have said online they plan to introduce articles of impeachment
against Boasberg. House Republicans already have filed articles of
impeachment against two other judges, Amir Ali and Paul Engelmayer,
over rulings they’ve made in Trump-related lawsuits.
Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit
from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-amendment grounds. The
AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial
decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following
an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of
America.
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