To the surprise of no one, Donald Trump’s maximalist tactics and scorched-earth agenda have generated a series of lawsuits, many of which have fared rather well in the lower courts. It’s also sparked a renewed discussion on the right about impeaching jurists who’ve dared to rule in ways that displease the White House.
For example, Elon Musk, the president’s biggest campaign donor, has already called for a “wave of judicial impeachments, not just one.” (This came after the billionaire demanded the immediate impeachment of a specific district court judge.) Asked recently about the statement, Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters, “That’s not going to happen now.” She quickly added, however, “We’re going to look at everything.”
Some on Capitol Hill are apparently taking this quite seriously.
We recently discussed chatter among far-right members of Congress about possible articles of impeachment against judges, as the conservative Washington Times reported, some are following through on the scuttlebutt.
Rep. Eli Crane is making good on previous threats to try to impeach a federal judge for getting in the way of President Trump and Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. Mr. Crane, Arizona Republican, announced Friday that he has filed articles of impeachment against U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer. The lawmaker accused Judge Engelmayer of being an “activist judge” for temporarily blocking DOGE from accessing records at the Treasury Department.
Crane’s resolution was formally filed on Friday, and it quickly picked up five co-sponsors: Republican Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio, Abraham Hamadeh of Arizona, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
What’s more, this is one of two separate impeachment resolutions filed against Judge Engelmayer: Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin filed articles of his own against the same jurist.
In case this weren’t quite enough, Ogles also introduced articles of impeachment this week against U.S. District Court Judge John Bates — a George W. Bush appointee — who recently ruled that the Trump administration had to restore online health policy content that had been scrubbed to comply with Trump’s executive order targeting “gender ideology.”
To be sure, there’s no reason to believe these measures will go anywhere, and at least so far, none of the impeachment campaigns has been endorsed by House GOP leaders. Two of three measures don’t even have co-sponsors yet. If the resolutions were to somehow gain traction, it would be exceedingly difficult for proponents to credibly make the case that issued rulings that Republicans don’t like constitutes high crimes. That said, the larger context matters. In the United States, there are three coequal branches of government. The idea built into the Madisonian constitutional system is to create a series of checks and balances between the federal institutions. In contemporary politics, the obvious problem is that too many congressional Republicans reject the idea of using the legislative branch to serve as a check on Trump’s executive branch. The less obvious problem is that some of those same GOP lawmakers want to undermine the judicial branch, too. 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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