Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Tuesday rejected the push led by President Trump to impeach a respected federal judge who is presiding over the administration’s controversial mass deportation of Venezuelan immigrants.
In an extraordinary open display of conflict with the White House, the nation’s top jurist warned against seeking to remove judges over disagreements on rulings like the actions taken by District Court Judge James Boasberg restricting Trump’s 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.”
Roberts was responding to Trump’s own extraordinary outburst hours earlier calling for the impeachment of Boasberg, whom he derided as a “far left lunatic.”
“This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, should be impeached.”
Trump and his allies say Boasberg has no right to interfere or even play any oversight role in Trump’s actions under the Alien Enemies Act, an arcane 18th century law that permits deportation of people who are nationals of a country with which the U.S. is at war.
Boasberg is presiding over a lawsuit filed by a group of Venezuelans facing potential deportation under the act. He has already questioned whether the White House has the right to invoke the act considering the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela or any other nation.
The administration thwarted Boasberg’s order to hold off on any deportations until after he rules by rushing three planes carrying hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador during a hearing Saturday night.
A Department of Justice lawyer Monday refused to tell the judge whether the flights left before or after Boasberg ordered the feds not to carry out the deportations.
On Tuesday, prosecutors revealed that two planes were already out of U.S. air space when Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportations. A third plane carried only migrants who were being ousted after being processed under other laws, the Department of Justice told the judge.
The Alien Enemies Act 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 has a deal with El Salvador to imprison alleged members of the gang.
If Boasberg does bar the White House from using the act to deport more migrants, it could appeal to a higher court or eventually the Supreme Court.
But some Trump officials have suggested it might just defy the order.
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 removal would require a two-thirds majority from the Senate, meaning Democrats could block it.
Just 15 judges have been impeached in the nation’s history, according to the U.S. courts governing body, and just eight have been removed.
The last judicial impeachment was in 2010 when G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of New Orleans was impeached on charges he accepted bribes and lied. He was convicted by the Senate and removed from office.