Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has found himself in the hot seat of America’s political discourse — and for good reason.
Not content with simply allowing rogue lower court judges’ judicial jihad against the executive branch to continue unabated, the chief justice has now taken it upon himself to criticize President Donald Trump for calling for District Court Judge James Boasberg to be impeached. An Obama appointee, Boasberg unilaterally attempted to halt the administration’s deportation of Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador this past weekend.
In his shockingly tone-deaf statement, Roberts seemingly attempted to run cover for Boasberg’s overreaching actions by pushing back on Trump’s calls for the judge’s impeachment.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Curiously, the statement does not appear to have been released on the Supreme Court’s website, per normal protocol, but instead given to legacy media outlets. Federalist CEO Sean Davis’ repeated requests to the high court’s public information office for the chief justice’s full statement and for explanations as to why the statement wasn’t uploaded to the court’s website have gone unanswered.
It’s worth noting that Tuesday’s incident wasn’t the first in which Roberts has gone out of his way to rebuke Trump for criticizing activist judges seeking to kneecap his administration. In 2018, the chief justice disputed the president’s reference to District Court Judge Jon Tigar — who blocked the administration’s asylum policy — as an “Obama judge.”
While Roberts seems to believe it’s his solemn duty to rebuke Trump for disagreeing with a rogue lower court’s overreaching injunction, the chief justice is missing the forest for the trees.
As noted by Davis, “The question of whether to impeach judges has been left solely to the elected representatives of the American people.” Contrary to Roberts’ desire to inject himself into the matter, the Supreme Court and its chief justice have no power or say in the process.
Roberts’ latest behavior may seem atypical for any Supreme Court justice, let alone the chief justice. But for the Bush appointee, it’s another example of his years-long bid to uphold what he views as the judiciary’s “legitimacy” by partaking in D.C.-style political gamesmanship.
Consider that the chief justice seemingly had no problem with radical Democrat lawmakers calling for his SCOTUS colleagues Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to be impeached over the court’s rulings and dishonest hatchet jobs published by left-wing propaganda outlets like ProPublica. Nor did he bother issuing a statement immediately after a gunman was apprehended for allegedly attempting to assassinate Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh because of the court’s leaked Dobbs draft opinion. (The leaker has still yet to be publicly identified and held responsible for the misconduct).
Placating the media monster attacking his colleagues is hardly exclusive to Roberts’ conduct in issuing statements, however. The chief justice is notorious for taking potential political fallout into consideration when ruling on controversial cases.
As detailed by Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway and Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino in their bestselling book, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court, Roberts notably contemplated the “public anger” the high court could face if it struck down Obamacare in the 2012 NFIB v. Sebelius case. The chief justice, the authors noted, “was uneasy with the prospect of the Court’s making such a major change to the health care law and feared it would be blamed for the likely fallout in the insurance markets.”
According to some reports, Roberts initially sided with his fellow Republican appointees in striking down the law. However, as noted by Hemingway and Severino, the chief justice ultimately “negotiated a deal with Justices Kagan and Breyer” to preserve Obamacare by “overturn[ing] the law’s expansion of Medicaid, contrary to their own reading of the statute, in exchange for [Roberts] upholding the individual mandate as a tax.”
“Whatever Chief Justice Roberts’s reasons, the result was not an improvement in the Court’s reputation. Pew reported that after the decision the Court remained at its all-time-low 52 percent approval rating,” the authors wrote. “The accepted narrative, even among those who welcomed the chief’s decision, was that he changed his legal position not on principle but in response to public pressure. … It was a regrettable outcome for anyone concerned about the legitimacy of the Court.”
What Roberts clearly fails to understand is that his actions to preserve the judiciary’s “legitimacy” are only destroying its credibility with the American people.
His refusal to end the lower courts’ unconstitutional sabotage of America’s duly elected president, when combined with his judicial gamesmanship and ham-fisted statements, presents the image of a chief justice more concerned with playing the role of a politician than a judge. His primary objective is not faithfully interpreting the law as written — but acting as a public relations specialist for the entire judiciary.
The longer Roberts (and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett) allow lower court judges to upend America’s constitutional system with arbitrary nationwide injunctions, the more faith the people lose in the courts’ ability to operate as a trustworthy branch of government. The chief justice can either stop these antics or watch as the president ignores them. The choice is his.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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