By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-18 17:31:38 | Updated at 2025-03-20 09:03:28
1 day ago
Chief Justice John Roberts has issued a stunning rebuke of Donald Trump in an explosive row over the deportation of migrants and attacks on judges.
It came after Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who had blocked his bid to send people the administration said were members of a violent Venezuelan gang to El Salvador.
Trump attacked the federal lower court judge as a 'radical left lunatic' in a wild tirade on social media.
But Roberts took the rare step of intervening and publicly slapping down the president.
'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 curt statement issued by the Supreme Court. 'The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.'
By that, Roberts meant that if the administration has a problem with a judge's ruling against it, it should appeal and fight it out in court – rather than savage a Senate-confirmed judge in public.
Any ultimate appeal would end up before his own body, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority and handed Trump his pivotal 'presidential immunity' victory during the campaign last year.
The blast from the ordinarily circumspect justice comes at a time when some liberal legal scholars say a constitutional crisis is looming or already here over a crush of court orders that would rein in constitutional authority Trump claims is his alone.
Although Roberts used language that was legalistic – and did not identify Trump by name – the public comment came just a few hours after Trump attacked a 'radical left lunatic' judge who had issued a temporary order seeking to bar his administration from barring the deportation of alleged gang members.
The ruling, from federal Judge James Boasberg, came after a fiery hearing where he demanded the government declare when it thinks his own orders on the deportations took effect – after the administration said the deportation flights were underway and over international waters when it learned of the order.
Trump posted on his Truth Social site Tuesday morning: 'This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President - He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING!'
Chief Justice John Roberts slapped back at threats to impeach judges, just hours after President Trump tore into a federal judge he termed a 'radical left lunatic'
'I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. 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. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!'
Trump's billionaire DOGE head and advisor Elon Musk has also been rallying to impeach judges who ruled against the administration on federal worker firings.
On Friday, in an extraordinary speech at the Justice Department, Trump praised Judge Aileen Cannon, a federal judge who ruled in his favor in the classified documents case. An appeal got withdrawn after Trump won the November election.
Trump said of Cannon: 'I did appoint her federal judge and these fake lawyers these horrible human beings were hitting her so hard.'
All federal district court judges must be confirmed by the Senate in order to serve.
Last week, a federal judge in California ruled that the administration must reinstate thousands of fired 'probationary' employees.
Another federal judge in Maryland, U.S. District Judge James Bredar, also an Obama nominee, has also ruled that terminations of probationary employees was illegal.
House Republicans have taken up Musk's call to impeach judges who have ruled against Trump.
Trump railed against judges who ruled against him during the campaign. He greeted Justice Roberts on the day of his speech to Congress earlier this month
Trump tore into Boasberg and 'crooked' judges after a clash over the timing of his order to halt deportations of more than 200 people
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) said he would be 'filing Articles of Impeachment against activist judge James Boasberg this week.'
'Necessary,' wrote Musk on his X site.
Nevertheless, the conservative New York Post editorial board wrote that Musk was 'way out of his lane' on the matter.
The ruling that set off the fury came when Boasberg issued the temporary ruling that blocked the deportations of more than 200 people after the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The White House said Monday that the people deported to El Salvador were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, but has refused to provide the names of the people now incarcerated in El Salvador.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. paid the country $6 million to accept them.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller teed off on the judge at the White House on Monday when asked about his statement that the judge's order was 'illegal.'
'The idea that a single district court judge has the authority to direct, as though they were the president, the movement of airplanes around the globe is ... the most outrageous thing I've seen from a district court judge in my lifetime, frankly, going back multiple lifetimes.
Earlier this month, the American Bar Association issued a statement warning against attempts to 'cow our country’s judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession.' It said intimidation 'cannot be sanctioned or normalized.'
The ABA said it would not 'stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not.'
Trump railed against judges who ruled against him in his four criminal trials throughout the campaign.
But in February and March, Musk began touring into judges using his powerful online platform.
'We are witnessing an attempted coup of American democracy by radical left activists posing as judges!' Musk wrote Feb. 11.
"There need to be some repercussions above ZERO for judges who make truly terrible decisions," Musk continued.
On Feb. 25, he posted: 'When judges egregiously undermine the democratic will of the people, they must be fired or democracy dies!'
The bar for impeaching an Article III federal judge is high. Only through a vote to impeach in the House and a two-thirds vote of the Senate can they be removed.
