Senate Judiciary Subcommittee To Hold Hearing on ‘Rogue’ Judges Thwarting Trump Agenda

Senators on the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing this week on so-called “rogue” judges who have been blocking key policies of the Trump administration, including deportations and the attempt by the president to unilaterally abolish birthright citizenship. The subcommittee on federal courts, oversight, agency action, and federal rights will hold the hearing on Wednesday. Several federal judges are already facing articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives from hardline conservative lawmakers, though Republican leadership has refused to call those measures up. The House Judiciary Committee, which would handle impeachment proceedings, has also so far refused to consider impeaching judges this year. The hearing led by Senator Ted Cruz is entitled, “Impeachment: Holding Rogue Judges Accountable,” and is likely to focus less on the viability of impeaching judges and more on the specific policy issues at hand and the power jurists have to block such executive actions. Republicans have pointed out that President Trump has been more likely than any other president to face nationwide injunctions since returning to office in January. No witnesses have been announced for Mr. Cruz’s hearing thus far, though according to Bloomberg, two federal judges declined invitations to appear before the panel this week. One of those jurists was Judge James Boasberg, who most famously handled the case of deportations to the Salvadoran supermax prison CECOT. Judge Boasberg — who faces articles of impeachment in the House which for now have stalled — is currently considering contempt proceedings for Trump administration officials who may have purposefully defied his order to halt the deportation flights to El Salvador.So far, more than 220 federal judges — including 20 appointed by Mr. Trump himself — hearing some 700 cases have rejected the Trump administration’s new policy that requires migrants facing deportation to be locked up while their cases proceed. Many were arrested when they appeared in court or at federal offices to plead their cases for asylum or legal status. The second judge who declined an invitation is Judge Deborah Boardman, who in February blocked Mr. Trump’s executive order to abolish birthright citizenship, which she wrote was likely unconstitutional. Republicans have been so adamant that judges should not have the power to issue nationwide injunctions that they have tried to work on legislative fixes. Congressman Darrell Issa authored a bill earlier this year to try to restrict that practice by limiting district court powers so that they could only offer injunctive relief to parties which were signed on to the case. When Republicans put a similar provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act over the summer, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the language did not comport with Senate rules, and it was taken out of the bill. Senator Eric Schmitt, who will be at Wednesday’s hearing, has been beating this drum particularly hard in recent months. He has called on the chief judge of the Washington, D.C., federal appeals court to suspend Judge Boasberg for his conduct on the bench. “No more delays. Judge Boasberg must be suspended immediately,” Mr. Schmitt wrote on November 17. “Impeachment is underway. He should not get to hear another case — this afternoon I led the effort to make that suspension happen.”Mr. Schmitt noted that the chief judge of any appellate court — in this case, Judge Sri Srinavasan — has the power to administratively suspend a district judge for misconduct. The Justice Department has already filed a misconduct complaint, though Judge Srinavasan has not yet issued a statement or response on the matter. “Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan must expeditiously rule on the DOJ’s judicial misconduct complaint and administratively suspend Boasberg while the impeachment inquiry unfolds,” Mr. Schmitt wrote on X. On November 17, after the Judiciary Committee announced it was holding a hearing on “rogue” judges, the American Bar Association put out a statement urging the attacks on judges to cease. The president of the ABA, Michelle Behnke, said she and her members were disturbed by “the growing pattern of lawmakers threatening or starting impeachment processes against sitting judges because of disagreement with rulings they have made.”“Citizens, including members of Congress, should be able to analyze, discuss and debate judges’ rulings. But calls for impeachment without any impeachable offense, accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric, undermine the public’s trust in the rule of law and our constitutional government,” Ms. Behnke argued.

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee To Hold Hearing on ‘Rogue’ Judges Thwarting Trump Agenda

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