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President Donald Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who ordered a halt to deportation flights of Venezuelans to El Salvador, but it鈥檚 highly improbable the judge will be ousted.
Trump didn鈥檛 call James E. Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, by name in a March 18 , instead calling him a "radical left lunatic." Trump wrote that when he was elected, he and his immigration platform "may have been the number one reason" that he won the presidency.
"I鈥檓 just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do," Trump wrote. "This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges鈥� I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!"
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare in response: "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."
Legal experts echoed Roberts.
READ MORE: US immigration flights set off terrified international searches for missing loved ones
"Impeaching judges based on their decisions has been frowned upon, even in Congress, since the early 1800s," said Michael Gerhardt, University of North Carolina law professor and author of "Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to Know." "No judge has ever been impeached and convicted on that basis. History is against these threats."
Trump is using a 1798 law to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally who he says are members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang. , one of the organizations that sued to stop the deportation flights, questioned whether the people who were deported are gang members and said it hadn鈥檛 been proven in a hearing. Boasberg ordered a temporary stop to the flights.
Here鈥檚 what to know about judicial impeachment history and why the constitutional process makes Trump鈥檚 wish unlikely.
The U.S. Constitution includes a two-step process to remove federal officials, including judges, who have committed wrongdoing.
Under the U.S. Constitution's , the House of Representatives has sole impeachment power; the House can bring articles of impeachment and adopt them by a single majority vote.
After the House agrees to impeach a federal official, the Senate conducts a trial to determine whether the person should be removed from office, which requires a two-thirds Senate vote.
Even if all Republicans agreed to impeach 鈥� a big if 鈥� the current party division of the Republican-led Senate, 53-47, makes that hurdle essentially impossible.
Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, introduced a March 18 to impeach Boasberg. The resolution says Boasberg "has abused the powers of his judicial authority, having engaged in actions that prioritize political gain over the duty of impartiality owed to the public and litigants." It does not explain what the "political gain" for the judge would be in this case.
Elon Musk, who is leading Trump鈥檚 cost-cutting efforts, on X, the social media platform he owns, in favor of holding an impeachment vote for judges who "repeatedly flout the law." Other Republicans have in recent weeks seeking to impeach other judges who ordered the administration to , to access Treasury Department data or directed the administration to o foreign aid partners.
In one section, the Constitution says the grounds for impeaching civil officers are treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Another section says federal judges "hold their Offices during good behaviour."
"One argument posits that these clauses should be read in conjunction, meaning that judges can be impeached and removed from office if they fail to exhibit good behavior or if they are guilty of 鈥榯reason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,鈥�" the wrote in 2023.
Impeachment experts said the Constitution鈥檚 framers did not envision judges being impeached because politicians disagreed with their rulings.
The idea is that judges can be impeached for crimes, such as bribery, said James D. Robenalt, attorney with Thompson Hine LLP and creator of a continuing legal education class on Watergate.
"It鈥檚 a pretty tough standard and it is meant to be that way," Robenalt said.
Allan J. Lichtman, American University political scientist and author of "The Case for Impeachment," said, "The normal process is not for the executive to call for impeaching a judge who issues a ruling adverse to its interests. The appropriate process is to appeal the ruling to a Circuit Court and perhaps ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court."
The last explicitly political impeachment of a federal judge occurred during the first term of President Thomas Jefferson, Lichtman said.
Jefferson influenced his allies in the House to impeach , who belonged to an opposing political party, in 1804. But the Senate acquitted Chase.
"Since then, the House has impeached judges for criminal activity, dereliction of duty, corruption, and abuse of power," Lichtman said.
Judges have rarely been impeached stretching back centuries. have been convicted.
The Senate last convicted a judge in 2010. G. Thomas Porteous Jr., a U.S. District court judge in Louisiana, was impeached on charges of accepting bribes and making false statements under penalty of perjury. voted in favor of at least one of the articles of impeachment.
In 2009, the House voted to impeach Samuel B. Kent, a Texas judge, on charges of sexual assault, obstructing and impeding an official proceeding, and making false and misleading statements. He before a Senate trial.
Three judges were impeached and found guilty in the 1980s: ; ; and , who went on to serve in Congress.
The 1980 Judicial Conduct and Disability Act established a process within the judicial branch for responding to complaints about judges. Those investigation鈥檚 findings can result in the a group of judges presided over by the Chief Justice, informing the House that the impeachment of a judge may be warranted.
This was the process for recent judicial impeachments, the Congressional Research Service .
On March 15, Trump issued a invoking use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to claim an "invasion" of the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela. The in U.S. history, all during wartime.
The Alien Enemies Act lets the president detain and deport people from a "hostile nation or government" without a hearing when the U.S. is either at war with that country, or that country has "perpetrated, attempted, or threatened" an invasion or raid legally called a "predatory incursion" against the U.S.
The next day, Boasberg ordered the Trump administration not to use that law to deport anyone in its custody for 14 days.
"You shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States," Boasberg said.
Soon after Boasberg鈥檚 order, planes carrying 261 people landed in El Salvador, and 101 of them were Venezuelans deported under the Alien Enemies Act, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird and Staff Writer Maria Ramirez Uribe contributed to this article.
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