Two House Republicans are plotting articles of impeachment against multiple federal judges who they say are unjustly blocking President Donald Trump’s “basic executive authority.”
No less than 18 injunctions have been issued by federal judges pausing Trump’s orders and initiatives, according to a New York Times tracker. Those rulings have come amid more than 40 lawsuits filed to pause the administration’s moves on budget freezes and firings, birthright citizenship, immigration and trans rights, among others.
In response, Trump top adviser and Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk on Wednesday called for "an immediate wave of judicial impeachments." House Republicans are answering the call.
Rep. Eli Crane, R-Az., announced Thursday he’s drawing up impeachment articles against Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, who last weekend issued temporary restrictions on Musk and DOGE accessing a Treasury Department payment system.
Also Thursday, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., announced an impeachment resolution against U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island for his injunction against the Trump administration’s freeze on billions of dollars of federal grants.
“They can’t do that, especially when they have a serious record of Democrat activism and being hardcore against President Trump,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told The Hill. “So, yeah, judges like that, they definitely should be impeached.”
Clyde called McConnell a “partisan activist” over his temporary restraining order (TRO) he issued on Jan. 29 pausing the freeze on federal aid.
Crane called Engelmayer an “activist judge” in an interview with One America News Network.
“Our case for impeaching Judge Engelmayer is basically that he’s an activist judge trying to stop the Trump administration from, you know, executing their, you know, Article 2 powers to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed,” Crane told former GOP lawmaker turned TV host Matt Gaetz.
Impeachment articles would need to be passed by a simple majority in the House to advance the measure to the Senate, where some Democrats would need to support the effort to meet the two-thirds threshold for conviction. Only 15 federal judges ever have been impeached and eight of those were convicted, Newsweek reported, with the last one coming in 2010.
Crane, however, is undeterred.
“Up till last Congress, the Speaker of the House had never been fired before,” Crane said. “I’m going to take action. And like I said, if this isn’t how we get to the, you know, the place that we need to be, I’m fine with that. But I’m not going to sit around and just, you know, watch these individuals stop President Trump from doing exactly what he told the American people he was going to do.”
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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