Republicans on Capitol Hill are looking at ways to put an end to the judicial overreach that has stymied President Trump's agenda, but impeachment isn't topping the list.
While top Republican leaders are reluctant to target individual judges, they are considering legislation to stop district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. Critics of the controversial practice - which allows judges to apply their rulings universally and not just to the parties in a case - say it allows district courts to usurp the powers of the president.
In the most significant example to date, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. ordered Trump to stop the deportation of alleged gang members and return them to the United States. Trump called for the judge, James Boasberg, to be impeached, prompting pushback from Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts.
The rate at which courts are blocking Trump is unprecedented: the administration has already been slammed with 15 injunctions. For comparison, courts issued just 14 during Joe Biden's term and 12 during the whole eight years of the Obama administration.
Democrats argue that Trump is facing more obstruction because he's pushing legal limits, but the president and his supporters see a clear pattern of bias from activist judges.
The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Trump ally Jim Jordan (R-OH), is holding a hearing next week on nationwide injunctions and Darrell Issa (R-CA) has proposed a bill that would limit their use. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate by Josh Hawley of Missouri (R).
Republicans like Hawley argue that targeting individual judges is an ineffective way of combating "systemic" activism from the bench.
“I would just say to my Republican colleagues: I’m really concerned about what’s going on,” Hawley told reporters. “I don’t know that switching out the judges is going to ultimately do a whole lot, unless we address the systemic issue here, which is the use of this so-called power."
"So, I think we ought to just 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, but you can not bind people outside your purview.”
While rank-and-file Republicans such as Texas's Brandon Gill have pushed for impeaching judges like Boasberg, the efforts have met with a tepid response from GOP leadership.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has said all options are on the table, but he has pointed to other mechanisms for holding judges accountable when they step out of line.
“We do have authority over the federal courts, as you know,” Johnson said. “We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts, and all these other things.”
Trump has called on the Supreme Court to weigh in on the use of nationwide injunctions "BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE."
"STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE," Trump wrote in a social media post. "If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!"
