If you disagree with a judge’s ruling, then you can try to appeal it. You probably don’t even need to be a lawyer to understand that basic principle.
But Donald Trump supporters, including Elon Musk, have backed another option in the face of some early legal losses for the new administration: try to impeach the judges.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali is among the jurists who have received this dangerous treatment from Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping to elect Trump and now enjoys a privileged position inside the federal government that contracts with his businesses. Musk has expressed support for impeaching Ali based on the Biden appointee’s temporary stoppage of the administration’s foreign funds freeze.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali is among the jurists who have received this dangerous treatment from Musk.
That’s the same case in which the Supreme Court just rejected the Trump administration’s bid to upend an order from Ali to pay out certain congressionally appropriated funds for already completed work. It was a divided ruling, to be sure, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the majority with the three Democratic appointees.
But the vote breakdown is beside the point for impeachment purposes. Even if the justices had unanimously sided with the government and vacated Ali’s order, that wouldn’t have made it legitimate in retrospect to call for his impeachment.
In his most recent annual report, Roberts called out impeachment threats based on judges’ rulings as illegitimate intimidation attempts. That he and another GOP appointee — a Trump appointee, no less — backed Ali’s order isn’t what defeats the argument for impeaching the trial judge, but it highlights the argument’s absurdity.
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