The Memo: Roberts rebukes Trump in latest twist of White House battle with judiciary

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a clear, if implicit, rebuke of President Trump on Tuesday, intensifying a clash between the White House and the judiciary.

The Trump administration, including the president himself, has repeatedly characterized judges as unfair and even undemocratic when the courts have paused or rebuffed sweeping changes proposed by Trump, Elon Musk and others in the administration.

The battle hit a new level on Tuesday morning when Trump contended in an irate social media post that a judge who had sought to halt the deportation of Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 should be impeached.

That was apparently a bridge too far for the chief justice, a conservative nominated to the high court by former President George W. Bush.

In an unusual statement, Roberts noted, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

He added, “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

The message was couched half-politely but its message was clear: the Trump administration can challenge decisions through the regular process, but it can’t threaten judges with removal on that basis.

Trump is unlikely to heed that message.

In his post targeting U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Tuesday, Trump labeled him a “Radical Left Lunatic,” “a troublemaker and agitator” and “Crooked.”

Winning a presidential election does not give a commander-in-chief the right to act without restraint, but Trump on Tuesday also repeated his past argument that judges ruling against him are usurping democracy.

In his social media post, Trump contended of Boasberg, “He didn’t win all seven swing states…he didn’t win anything. I won for many reasons, in an overwhelming mandate, but fighting illegal immigration may have been the number one reason for this historic victory.”

In November, Trump won the popular vote over then-Vice President Harris by about 1.5 percentage points, falling short of an overall majority even as he prevailed fairly comfortably in the electoral college.

Many of the specifics of the controversy around the deportation of Venezuelans last weekend remain unclear.

The judge is demanding that the government provide him with a detailed timeline of how and when three aircraft carrying deportees left the United States, ultimately landing in El Salvador. El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has pledged to imprison deportees for a fee.

One key question is whether the Trump administration ignored Boasberg’s order, issued at an emergency hearing on Saturday evening, to halt the deportations -- if necessary by turning the planes around in midair.

The administration has argued that at least two of the flights had left U.S. soil before the order and, once they exited U.S, airspace, were not required to turn back. Boasberg appears to have little patience for that argument.

A high-ranking official for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Robert Cerna, has acknowledged that a third plane left after Boasberg’s order was issued but has argued that it was carrying people being deported under a different authority than the Alien Enemies Act.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice declined to provide the judge with more information that he had been seeking, citing national security concerns. Boasberg responded in turn by demanding the information in a sealed court filing by noon on Wednesday.

In the broader battle over the power of the judiciary, however, the MAGA forces are driving on.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) said on Tuesday he would introduce articles of impeachment against Boasberg. 

Gill’s claim that Boasberg was guilty of the requisite “high crimes and misdemeanors” appears to rest on the contention that, in pausing the Trump executive order, he has “illegitimately tried to substitute his own judgement for that of the elected President of the United States.”

Such a rationale would appear to suggest a president’s preferred course of action cannot be stopped by the courts, because such a pause would automatically be considered judicial overreach.

In that context, it is worth noting that 133 multistate lawsuits were filed against former President Biden’s administration, according to Ballotpedia. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in a November 2024 statement celebrated the filing of his state’s 100th lawsuit against Biden.

Still, Musk retweeted Gill’s announcement of his articles of impeachment and several Republican lawmakers are said to have signed on as cosponsors.

Removing Boasberg or any other judge would be a very steep climb because it would need not only a majority vote of the House but a two-thirds majority in the Senate. 

The chances of enough Democrats signing on in the upper chamber to clear that threshold is effectively zero.

Still, the effort can add further fuel to the fire of GOP criticism of the judiciary.

On Monday, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told Fox News, “We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think, I don’t care what the left things. We’re coming.”

Later that day, Attorney General Pam Bondi told the same network that the administration would “absolutely” continue its deportations of Venezuelan migrants despite the judge’s order. She accused Boasberg of wrongly “thinking he can control foreign policy for the entire country.”

Musk has previously characterized adverse findings by the courts as “tyranny,” while Vice President Vance has contended that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive branch’s legitimate power.”

But even as the rhetoric ramps up, the legal setbacks keep coming.

On Tuesday, a judge blocked Musk’s quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency from making any more cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled that the gutting of USAID by Musk and DOGE also appeared to be unconstitutional.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.