Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the 91-year-old chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pushed back Thursday against calls by President Trump and some House Republicans to impeach federal judges who rule against Trump’s agenda.
“You can’t impeach a judge just because you disagree with their opinion,” Grassley told Fox News when asked about calls to impeach lower-court judges who have blocked elements of Trump’s agenda, such as the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
Grassley is working on legislation to restrict district-level federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions and plans to hold a hearing April 2 to explore “legislative solutions to the bipartisan problem of universal injunctions.”
“We’ve got to be a legislative body. I know the president is irritated with some of these judges and I don’t blame him, but you can’t impeach a judge just because you disagree with an opinion,” he said.
Trump this month called for the impeachment of James Boasberg, the U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia, after he ordered a temporary stop to the deportation of alleged gang members.
He slammed the judge as a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.”
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) introduced an article of impeachment against Boasberg, charging him with “abuse of power.” The legislation has 22 House GOP cosponsors.
Grassley told local reporters in a call this week that Congress could pass legislation to limit a district judge’s ruling to the parties of a particular case.
“I doubt if any legislation should be passed that would stop all national injunctions,” he said, according to The Des Moines Register. “But the principle here is that in most cases, an injunction … should only be against something in that judicial district and just for the people that are involved in the case.
He said judges should “not be policymakers.”