In the U.S. political system, senators can’t initiate impeachment proceedings; only House members can. That said, senators can encourage representatives to launch impeachment efforts, and on Wednesday, that’s precisely what several Senate Republicans did. NBC News reported:
Republican senators on Wednesday increased their scrutiny of federal judges whose rulings they’ve opposed, with some pushing for them to be impeached.
Attention at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused on two judges: Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg and Maryland-based Deborah Boardman, both of whom have fallen [afoul] of MAGA world.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who called and chaired the hearing, argued that Boasberg and Boardman “meet the standard for impeachment and for conviction and removal from office.” Similarly, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri added that he sees Boasberg as “the embodiment of a rogue judge.”
To date, no congressional Republicans have presented any evidence of Boasberg committing high crimes or engaging in misconduct.
The trouble began in earnest last March, when Donald Trump, taking a step he hadn’t taken before, publicly and explicitly called for the impeachment of Boasberg, who had ruled in a way the White House didn’t like in an Alien Enemies Act case. Hours later, the president sat down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and kept the offensive going.
“We have bad judges; we have very bad judges,” Trump said. “These are judges that shouldn’t be allowed. I think at a certain point you have to start looking at — what do you do when you have a rogue judge?”
A group of congressional Republicans apparently interpreted Trump’s appeal as a directive and got to work introducing impeachment resolutions against judges who have ruled in ways the White House didn’t like.
Indeed, the list grew quickly. Over the course of a few months, GOP impeachment resolutions were filed against Boasberg, Boardman, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates, U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali, U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell Jr., U.S. District Court Judge Theodore Chuang and U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer. (Technically, Engelmayer is facing two parallel impeachment measures simultaneously.)
Megadonor Elon Musk soon after joined the crusade, sending campaign donations to Republican members of Congress who supported impeaching federal judges.
This week, Cruz and some of his GOP colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee extended their own green light to House Republicans to advance the crusade. At this point, there’s nothing to suggest GOP leaders are planning to bring any of these efforts to the House floor for a vote, and there’s no reason to assume the impeachment resolutions will pass. What’s more, even if the House did impeach any or all of these jurists, it would take 67 votes in the Senate to remove them from the federal bench, which is effectively an impossibility. These obvious attempts at intimidating the judiciary, in other words, almost certainly won’t work. Last year, a Marquette University Law School poll found that 70% of Americans opposed impeaching federal judges over anti-Trump rulings. There is, however, often a big gap between what the public wants and what Republican officials decide to do. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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