‘Unfit to hold the office of federal judge’: Lawmaker moves to impeach judge who ordered Trump admin to restore public health websites

Left: Donald Trump and Elon Musk appear on Fox News on Feb. 18, 2025 (Fox News/YouTube). Right: Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn. (U.S. House of Representatives). Inset: U.S. District Judge John Bates speaks at the National Constitution Center on Dec. 13, 2018 (YouTube).

Left: Donald Trump and Elon Musk appear on Fox News on Feb. 18, 2025 (Fox News/YouTube). Right: Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn. (U.S. House of Representatives). Inset: U.S. District Judge John Bates speaks at the National Constitution Center on Dec. 13, 2018 (YouTube).

For the third time in two weeks, a federal judge has had articles of impeachment filed against him in the U.S. House of Representatives over temporary pauses imposed on Trump administration policies.

On Feb. 11, Washington, D.C.-based U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a temporary restraining order directing four administrative agencies to restore a series of webpages and datasets that had been removed from public health websites.

As has become standard with such injunctive relief being granted to plaintiffs suing the government, Republicans on the internet expressed outrage and called for the judge to face consequences.

In Bates’ case, President Trump’s head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, joined a pile-on started by Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, and, in a post on X (formerly Twitter) said: “We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist.”

Now, attempts are being made.

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