Johnson, Thune shrug off judicial impeachments push
The top two Republicans in Congress aren’t rushing to embrace calls from the MAGA right to impeach lower-court judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, in separate comments to reporters Monday, didn’t entirely reject the impeachment push but discussed other ways the conflict between the president and the courts might ultimately be resolved.
Johnson confirmed POLITICO's reporting that he’s looking for alternatives to pursuing judicial impeachments, which would ultimately fail in the Senate, including legislation aimed at reining in the ability of individual judges to order nationwide injunctions.
“Look, everything is on the table: Impeachment is an extraordinary measure. We're looking at all the alternatives that we have to address this problem,” Johnson told reporters.
Thune separately indicated that impeachment is a House decision but “there's an appeals process, and, you know, I suspect that's ultimately how this will get handled."
Though a handful of House Republicans previously called for the impeachment of judges who had ruled against Trump, the issue boiled over last week when Judge James Boasberg of the federal trial court in Washington sought to block Trump’s effort to deport alleged gang members to El Salvador.
But some Republican lawmakers are warning that a full-blown impeachment effort would distract from what should be their main focus for their three-week stretch before the April recess: their plan to craft and pass a party-line domestic policy bill encompassing tax cuts, border security and more.
Johnson added Monday that the House will have hearings on the nationwide injunctions issue soon, including “questioning some of the judges themselves to have them defend their actions, and then we'll see about limiting the scope of injunctions.”
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Fox News on Monday that his committee would start holding its hearings around nationwide injunctions and Boasberg next week. The Ohio Republican added that he suspected Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) would do the same.
In the interview, Jordan did not mention impeachment but offered his support for a bill from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that would limit the power of district court judges to issue nationwide injunctions.