As President Donald Trump’s battle with the judiciary escalates, House Republicans are eyeing ways to rein in judges from blocking parts of his agenda.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said on Monday his panel will hold hearings next week on U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who is at the center of the administration’s legal fight over deportation flights and the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump accused Boasberg — an Obama appointee who was first named to a lower Washington, D.C., court by President George W. Bush — of bias and called for his impeachment after he blocked the administration from using a centuries-old law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador.
Trump and his Republican allies, including Jordan, have also taken issue with the use of injunctions and temporary restraining orders to halt Trump policies nationwide as the courts weigh the merits of each case.
“It really starts to look like Judge Boasberg is operating purely political against the president, and that’s what we want to have hearings on — this broad issue and some of what Judge Boasberg is doing,” Jordan said on Fox News.
Jordan said he thought Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will do the same.
In addition to hearings, Jordan said he expects House Republican leadership to move forward with a bill from California Rep. Darrell Issa aimed at limiting some judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions.
Rep. Jim Jordan speaks at a House Republicans press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 12, 2024.
Craig Hudson/Reuters
Issa’s bill — entitled the “No Rogue Rulings Act” — would put restrictions on federal judges issuing orders providing injunctive relief that impacts the entire country outside their districts.
Jordan called it a “good piece of legislation.” The bill was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee before lawmakers broke for recess earlier this month.
Speaker Mike Johnson appears to be warming up to the idea of potentially impeaching judges who rule against Trump, saying “everything is on the table.”
“Impeachment is an extraordinary measure. We’re looking at all the alternatives that we have to address this problem. Activist judges are a serious threat to our system,” Johnson said Monday afternoon.
Johnson confirmed that the GOP-led House will hold hearings to “highlight the abuses” of federal judges — saying lawmakers “may wind up questioning some of these judges themselves to have them defend their actions.”
“We’ll see about limiting the scope of federal injunctions,” he added. “One judge should not be able to suspend and uphold everything that a president does on their issues. I think the American people agree with that.”
Over the weekend, Johnson appeared to endorse the measure, writing on X that the House is “working overtime to limit the abuses of activist federal judges.”
“Speaker Johnson’s indicated he’d like to get this bill to the floor next week and move it through the process,” Jordan told Fox News. “So, we think there’s some things we can do legislatively, and then, frankly, there’s the broader issue of all these judges’ injunctions and then decisions like Judge Boasberg … what he’s trying to do, and how that case is working.”
Meanwhile, the push from Trump, Elon Musk and several Republican hardliners to impeach Boasberg and other judges faces steeper obstacles.
Johnson has not said where he stands on pursuing impeachment, but given the slim House majority, it would be extremely difficult to get the House Republican conference together to vote to impeach a judge.
If the House were to successfully impeach a judge, the Senate would be compelled to act in some way, but the odds of a Senate conviction are almost zero, as it would require support from at least 14 Democrats.
As the rhetoric ramps up between the Trump administration and the courts, the U.S. Marshals Service is warning federal judges of an increase in threats, ABC News reported. Chief Justice John Roberts last week issued a rare public statement amid Trump’s attacks on Boasberg, saying impeachment was not “an appropriate response” to legal disagreements and that the correct path forward was the appeals process.
