GOP Threatens Judges Who Block Trump — But Was Happy When They Blocked Biden

WASHINGTON ― In April 2023, dozens of Republicans in Congress threw their support behind a conservative U.S. district judge who issued a sweeping injunction aimed at overturning the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill, mifepristone.

A year earlier, six Republican-led states celebrated a national injunction against President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan.

“This is a big win for our office and for Americans across the country,” said then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is now a U.S. senator. “And we will keep up the fight.”

But now that some of President Donald Trump’s policy plans are being stymied by similar court orders, GOP lawmakers are crying foul ― vowing to take extreme actions against judges who issue injunctions to rein in the president’s everywhere-all-at-once lawlessness.

Some are threatening to impeach so-called “activist” judges, who are really just judges who don’t rule in Trump’s favor, and haul them before Congress for questioning. Others, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), are floating the idea of eliminating or defunding entire federal courts that dare rule against the Trump administration.

“It would be un-American and unconstitutional,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said of GOP calls for impeaching judges. “I’m absolutely astonished they’re even talking about it because it indicates such contempt for democracy.”

Republicans have set their sights on three judges in particular: U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell, who issued an injunction earlier this month blocking Trump’s sweeping federal funding freeze; U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, who blocked billionaire Elon Musk from taking further steps to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development; and U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.

Trump has spent weeks falsely accusing Boasberg of being “a Democratic activist.” In reality, Boasberg was first appointed to the bench by then-President George W. Bush, confirmed 96-0 by the Senate to his current judgeship and has ruled in Trump’s favor lots of times in the past.

The president’s attacks on Boasberg escalated last week to the point of him demanding the judge’s removal from the bench: “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote on social media. His demand drew an extraordinary rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said in a statement that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

The Constitution sets a very high bar for removing federal judges. They have to be impeached by the House for criminal misconduct, and then two-thirds of the Senate must vote for a conviction. In the event Republicans actually began this process for Boasberg, which is extremely unlikely as there are no grounds for doing so, the GOP only controls 53 seats in the upper chamber, making any action on this front entirely performative.

But even the threat of impeaching a judge can have negative consequences, as Republicans look to intimidate the federal judiciary into giving them a blank check to operate without impunity. Both the GOP-controlled House and Senate are firmly under Trump’s thumb, leaving the courts as the president’s only real obstacle to pushing through extreme and often illegal plans.

Republicans have scheduled two hearings next week to take a closer look at judges’ use of nationwide injunctions to stop Trump ― something they’ve celebrated when judges have issued them to block policies by Biden and former President Barack Obama.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), for one, hailed a federal judge’s injunction in 2015 that blocked the Obama administration’s executive actions on immigration.

“Today’s ruling reinforces what I and many others have been saying for a long time: that President Obama acted outside the law when he went around Congress to unilaterally change our nation’s immigration laws,” Cornyn said at the time. “Today’s victory is an important one, but the fight to reverse the President’s unconstitutional overreach is not over. The President must respect the rule of law and fully obey the court’s ruling.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who currently chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, similarly applauded an appeals court decision to uphold the 2015 injunction on Obama’s immigration plans.

“Thanks to the Fifth Circuit, the injunction on the President’s unlawful maneuvering to implement his own policies, without regard for Congress, the law, or American workers remains in place,” Grassley said at the time.

“The Obama administration does not have unfettered authority to execute whatever it wants,” he continued. “The President simply can’t singly rewrite the country’s immigration laws. This is a win for the checks and balances established by the Constitution.”

Lots of Senate conservatives were thrilled with this news.

“The Fifth Circuit has issued a strong and well-reasoned opinion upholding an injunction that temporarily blocks President Obama’s lawless executive amnesty program,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said at the time. “Our immigration system does need reform. But the reform must be debated and passed by Congress, not unilaterally imposed on the American people by the executive branch.”

Contrast those sentiments with what Grassley said Wednesday, talking about his plans to hold Judiciary Committee hearings to crack down on judges’ use of injunctions to block Trump.

“District judges’ abuse of nationwide injunctions has hobbled the executive branch and raised serious questions regarding the lower courts’ appropriate jurisdictional realm,” Grassley told Fox News.

“Since the courts and the executive branch are on an unsustainable collision course, Congress must step in and provide clarity,” he said. “Our hearings will explore legislative solutions to bring the balance of power back in check.”

And Lee, a staunch Trump supporter, introduced a bill on Wednesday that would create a three-judge panel to review any injunctions against the president.

This bill comes “in the wake of several decisions by district court judges usurping the role of the Chief Executive from President Donald Trump and attempting to thwart the will of the American people who elected him,” Lee said in a statement. “This legislation will create a judicial panel to expedite Supreme Court review of these blanket injunctions, preventing unelected radicals in robes from sabotaging the separation of powers.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bill this week aiming to restrict federal judges’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions, which he said would address the problem better than removing individual judges.

“I think it’s abusive. This has been a bipartisan concern,” Hawley told reporters on Capitol Hill. “I think we ought to make it clear, if you’re a district court, you can bind the parties who are in front of you, or the parties who are in your district, and you cannot bind people outside your purview.”

Ironically, Hawley’s wife, Erin Morrow Hawley, was the attorney leading the 2023 lawsuit in which U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued an injunction temporarily halting the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill. The Republican senator also voted to confirm Kacsmaryk to his current court seat.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) admitted that both parties have celebrated nationwide injunctions when their party is not in control of the White House. He noted that Trump has seen more injunctions than either of his two Democratic predecessors ― a detail that almost certainly stems from the reality that Trump runs afoul of the law more often.

“I think Trump got hit with 87 in his first term and 30 so far,” Kennedy said. “But it is an equal opportunity abuse.”

Democrats pointed to Trump’s efforts to demolish federal agencies and freeze congressionally approved spending as some examples of how he’s pushed the limits of his authority far further than his predecessors. They also noted that he’s tried to do things like eliminate birthright citizenship, despite it being clearly established by the Constitution.

“They’re trying to stop these judges from even temporarily holding Trump up,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “They want him to just be able to move ahead with all his executive orders without objection.”

At the heart of all of this is that Trump is mad because he keeps losing in court. One of the legal groups that’s been leading the way in challenging Trump in the courts ― and winning ― is Democracy Forward, a progressive legal organization that last month secured a nationwide preliminary injunction that halted Trump’s efforts to arbitrarily terminate federal grants relating to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Federal judges have served as “the source of protection for the American people” in countless cases since Trump took office,” said Skye Perryman, the organization’s president and CEO.

They’ve been “issuing orders of various types to ensure that those whose rights are affected and seek their day in court have protection against harmful and unlawful overreach by the government,” she said. “We invite the president and his allies to course correct and govern in the best interest of the American people and in accordance with the law.”

Perryman added, “Should they continue to shirk their duty to do so, you’ll see us ensure the American people have their rights protected in court.”