President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
President Donald Trump is calling for the impeachment of a federal judge who issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the administration from deporting individuals alleged to be members of a Venezuelan gang under an obscure 18th century wartime authority that does not require due process.
The president on Tuesday morning took to social media to suggest that Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, of Washington, D.C., be removed from the bench, referring to the Barack Obama-appointed jurist as a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator.”
Trump continued, claiming that one of the primary reasons he won reelection was his stance on combating illegal immigration.
“I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do,” the president wrote. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY.”
While Trump did not call out Boasberg by name, the Truth Social post was clearly directed at the judge, who over the weekend issued a 14-day halt on the Trump administration deporting alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
After the administration appeared to willfully flout the court’s order, Justice Department attorneys argued that two planes carrying more than 100 migrants had already left U.S. airspace and that Boasberg’s oral order to have the planes return to the country did not require compliance because it was not memorialized as a written order.
The judge then called a hearing Monday afternoon where he grilled the DOJ regarding the administration’s conduct.
During the hearing, Boasberg scoffed at Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli’s assertion that he could not provide the court with information about the migrant flights due to “national security concerns,” though he was unable to elaborate.
“Why are you showing up today and not having answers on why you can’t even disclose it … to me?” Boasberg asked sternly. “That’s the purpose of the hearing so we can find out answers. … Maybe those answers are classified, maybe they aren’t … but you can’t even tell me which of those applies?”
Also on Monday, the administration asked a federal appeals court to remove Boasberg from the case, accusing him of acting outside the scope of his authority when he ordered the return of the migrants as well as when he called a hearing to make the Justice Department publicly defend its actions.
“That development escalates the stakes of the district court’s inappropriate exercise of jurisdiction and the risks that the district court may force the government to disclose sensitive national security and operational security concerns or face significant penalties from the court,” the filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stated. “The Government cannot — and will not — be forced to answer sensitive questions of national security and foreign relations in a rushed posture without orderly briefing and a showing that these questions are somehow material to a live issue. Answering them, especially on the proposed timetable, is flagrantly improper and presents grave risks to the conduct of the Government in areas wholly unsuited to micromanagement supervision by a district court judge.”
Republican Rep. Brandon Gill, of Texas, on Monday afternoon said he “introduced Articles of Impeachment” against Boasberg in the House.
Similar to a presidential impeachment, a judge’s impeachment requires a majority vote in the House, but conviction and removal require a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. Only 15 federal judges have been impeached and only eight have been subsequently convicted and removed.
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