Republican senators are openly gunning for federal judges who’ve ruled against Trump, with Ted Cruz calling for two jurists to be removed from office because they did their jobs.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Cruz urged the House to move forward on impeaching U.S. District Judges James Boasberg and Deborah Boardman—both appointed by Democratic presidents, both on MAGA’s hit list.
“Both of these judges, I believe, meet the standard for impeachment and for conviction and removal from office,” Cruz declared.
WHAT’S GOING ON: Articles of impeachment against both judges have already been introduced in the Republican-controlled House, though no votes have happened yet. But the Senate hearing made clear this isn’t going away—it’s a coordinated pressure campaign.
Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri called Boasberg “the embodiment of a rogue judge” who “wears, in fact, a blue jersey” instead of his black robe. Sen. Mike Lee accused both judges of “breaches of the public trust that have the ability to circumvent the constitutional order.”
The actual “offenses”? Boasberg approved an order preventing GOP senators—including Cruz—from knowing their phone records were being searched during the January 6th investigation. Boardman sentenced a woman who pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to eight years in prison. Republicans think that sentence was too short.
BUT BUT BUT: Judges aren’t supposed to be impeached because lawmakers don’t like their rulings. Even Chief Justice John Roberts—hardly a liberal—pushed back on this exact argument last year when Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a rare public statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
OF COURSE: Democrats on the committee weren’t having it. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse called the hearing part of a “MAGA coordinated strategy to bring pressure and threats to bear on a federal judge.” He noted that if the Senate actually cared about judicial misconduct, it might want to look at Justice Clarence Thomas’s well-documented ethics problems.
Sen. Mazie Hirono cut straight to it: “This hearing is not about supposedly judicial misconduct. It is about intimidating and threatening judges who have the temerity to apply the law to Donald Trump.”
WHY IT MATTERS: This is happening against a backdrop of rising security threats against federal judges. Those who’ve ruled against Trump have reported harassment and threats that have “changed their lives.” The impeachment push isn’t just political theater—it’s part of a broader campaign to intimidate an independent judiciary into compliance.
The message to every federal judge in America is clear: rule against Trump, and we’re coming for your job. That’s not how democracy works. That’s how authoritarianism does.