Now to the main event…

Two Republicans, Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona and freshman firebrand Brandon Gill of Texas, have already introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg. This is on top of the articles of impeachment some Republicans have introduced against three other judges, for decisions against Trump’s cuts to USAID; efforts to remove LGBTQ content from the Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control websites; and DOGE’s access to the Treasury Department’s payment system. The judge “engaged in conduct so utterly lacking in intellectual honesty and basic integrity that he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors,” another pro-impeachment congressman, Andy Ogles, wrote in his version of impeachment articles for two judges. Meanwhile, Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi about “judicial overreach,” hand-writing at the bottom: “Pam: This is a very important issue for me! Please take strong action!” Grassley plans to hold a hearing in the next couple of weeks on the issue, a person familiar with the planning said. Still, the reality is that outside the diehards in the Freedom Caucus and Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers, few Republicans on Capitol Hill have any appetite for impeaching judges. Trump and his allies, both online and in Congress, have been vocal about punishing Boasberg, but the votes aren’t even close to being there, multiple Republicans tell me. “We shouldn’t impeach judges because they render a decision we disagree with. The remedy for bad decisions is getting them overturned on appeal,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, who is relatively close with (though not related to!) Speaker Johnson, told me through a spokesperson. Indeed, while I’m told that the Judiciary Committee is expected to hold hearings on judges, they won’t be the beginning of impeachment proceedings. Instead, they’re viewed internally as an effort to satisfy demands to hold judges accountable. Even hardliner Rep. Chip Roy said the House should focus on areas other than impeachment, although his proposed remedies—threatening to defund courts and affirming Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—are also radical. Judicial impeachment, its detractors say, could be a distraction and suck up too much oxygen for Republicans on the Hill; they’ll have enough trouble passing and defending Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill. Few moderate members want to even broach the subject. The worry for some is that, like many things in Trump’s world, what starts as a radical-fringe idea could gain wide adoption as a litmus test for the MAGA base. Impeachment has already become the political tool of choice for an angry legislative branch, though it’s generally been threatened against executive branch officials, and it hasn’t been particularly successful. Senate Democrats tried and failed, twice, to convict Trump during his first term. House Republican leadership was reluctant to move to impeach Joe Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas—a villain for conservatives—because it was so unpopular among the rank and file. (They finally did after lots of arm-twisting, and to show the base they could draw blood after failing to find a smoking gun in their investigations of Biden. The Senate didn’t convict.) Skeptics note that only 15 federal judges have been impeached in the entire history of the United States, mostly for misconduct on the bench. But it’s clear why the judicial branch is proving bothersome to MAGA, especially as the administration steamrolls a mostly supine Congress. The courts are doing most of the checking-and-balancing in the federal government these days: More than 100 suits have been filed, and 40 injunctions have been handed down, according to Democrats keeping count, which is close to outpacing Trump’s entire first term in a mere two months. This tracks the growing number of injunctions over time, according to a Harvard Law Review study, from six during President George W. Bush’s two terms, to 12 during President Obama’s two terms, with about half issued by judges appointed by a president from another party. President Biden got hit with 14 injunctions in his single term, every one of them from a Republican-appointed judge. But during Trump’s first term, the courts issued a whopping 64 injunctions, with 59 coming from Democratic-appointed judges. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, along with Miller, has portrayed such numbers as a partisan attack on Trump specifically. But the law review study suggests that what’s behind these numbers isn’t so much a partisan judiciary as a president who keeps pushing the bounds of the law. (Interestingly, new data from Stanford professor Adam Bonica indicates that, during Trump 2.0, judges from across the ideological spectrum are ruling against the president at similar rates.)

Democrats, for their part, are mostly dismissing Republican calls to impeach judges, knowing full well that even a successful impeachment in the House could never muster the 67 votes (including 14 Democrats) needed to secure conviction in the Senate. Many are also reluctant to call Trump’s opposition and open threats against the courts a “constitutional crisis,” saying the term is ambiguous and unhelpful. But they’re trying to figure out their own way to push back from their position in the minority. The case of the deported alleged gang members naturally poses some political perils. This is where Trump’s team has seemed the most openly defiant of the courts, but the risks for Democrats are twofold: First, judicial independence isn’t necessarily top of mind for voters the way the price of eggs is, and Democrats have recent experience with abstract “fate of democracy” arguments falling flat in 2024. Democrats do think that voters care to some extent, but the second problem is that it’s an awkward look to appear to defend the rights of noncitizen alleged violent criminals. “I think a lot of voters are freaked out by the constant chaos and the sense that the Trump administration is a lawbreaking administration,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told me. “And that as these decisions pile up, where the Trump administration is obviously and flagrantly wrong, and the response, instead of appeal, is to threaten a political act in impeachment rather than follow through in the courts, that just adds to the sense of chaos, uncertainty, and misconduct that is taking place.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer held a rare recess-week conference call with members of the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to strategize—a meeting, I’m told blandly, that was “productive” and that, “We’re working on it.” House Democrats, predictably, have been more aggressive. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has set up a litigation and response task force led by Rep. Joe Neguse, a former manager during Trump’s second impeachment. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, has been aggressively engaged, spearheading an amicus brief in support of government workers and filing Freedom of Information Act requests to DOGE. Last week, he sent a letter to the Trump administration warning them that government officials who ignore court orders could be slapped with civil or criminal penalties. “In order to ensure that members of your Administration honor your own commitment to abide by the rule of law,” he wrote, “please remind them of the criminal and civil penalties they may personally face if they fail to comply with court orders.” The courts haven’t gone that far—yet.

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