By Nate Raymond
Jan 7 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republicans convened a hearing on Wednesday to argue that their colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives should advance impeachment articles against so-called “rogue” judges, following calls by President Donald Trump and his allies to remove judges who have ruled against his agenda.
Democrats, meanwhile, criticized the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican majority for holding the twice-postponed hearing, which Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said appeared to be part of an “effort to try to intimidate the judiciary into not ruling against the Trump administration.”
“Impeachment isn’t a remedy for judges getting decisions wrong,” the Rhode Island Democrat said. “Appeal is the remedy for that, as the chief justice has stated.”
But Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who heads the panel’s subcommittee on courts, said judges could be impeached and removed not just for crimes but for “the subtle subversions that may violate no criminal statute and yet strike at the very architecture of our republic.”
He focused on two of the eight judges currently facing impeachment resolutions pending in the Republican-led House by Trump allies: Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., and U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland.
He argued they should join the small list of 15 judges who have ever been impeached by the House, the vast majority of whom were accused of ethical and criminal misconduct.
Just eight of those were convicted by the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required to convict. The U.S. Constitution says grounds for impeachment are treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Several House Republican lawmakers first sought Boasberg’s impeachment in March after he blocked Trump from using wartime powers to deport Venezuelan migrants.
Twenty then signed onto a second impeachment resolution filed in November accusing Boasberg of improperly ordering phone carriers not to disclose that phone records for 10 senators and one House member were sought during former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s 2020 electoral loss.
Boardman faces an impeachment resolution from 17 House Republicans that alleges she abused her power by handing an “indefensibly light” eight-year prison sentence in October to a California resident who admitted to attempting to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022.
Neither impeachment resolution has advanced since it was filed, nor have any of the other impeachment articles filed against judges who have ruled against Trump’s initiatives. But Cruz said he sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday urging him to advance the ones filed against Boasberg and Boardman, who a person familiar with the matter said were invited to testify at Wednesday’s hearing but declined.
The panel instead heard from three witnesses including Will Chamberlain of the conservative Article III Project and Robert Luther, an associate law professor at George Mason University who served in the White House Counsel’s Office during Trump’s first term and called the idea that judges cannot be impeached for their conduct on the bench a “modern misconception.”
The third witness was Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center who called it an “especially dangerous moment” for senators to suggest judges should be impeached over rulings they disagree with.
“We are seeing unprecedented attacks and threats against many of these same judges from senior executive branch officials,” he said. “These include President Trump calling for the impeachment of specific judges.”
Trump called last year for Boasberg’s impeachment, prompting Chief U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to issue a rare rebuke describing impeachment as “not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Read more:
Conservative US appeals court judge knocks calls to impeach jurists
Republicans seek impeachment of 2 more judges who stymied Trump
US Chief Justice Roberts rebukes Trump’s attack on judge
US judiciary warns of threats amid ‘concerning’ calls to impeach judges
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston)
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