CNN
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Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back on President Donald Trump’s escalating rhetoric against the federal judiciary on Tuesday in a highly unusual statement that appeared to be aimed at the president’s call to impeach judges who rule against him.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a statement released by the Supreme Court. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Roberts’ statement did not mention Trump by name, but it came hours after the president stepped up his attacks on federal judges by specifically calling for Judge James Boasberg, who has temporarily blocked the deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, to be impeached.
Several Trump allies, including Elon Musk, have been calling for impeaching judges for weeks after rulings against the Trump administration.
“This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
The chief justice and the other members of the Supreme Court have largely remained silent as Trump and allies have ramped up their attacks on the judiciary amid a slew of preliminary rulings that haven’t gone their way. Most of those cases are being appealed and will likely wind their way up the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court in coming weeks.
Though Roberts and other justices have largely steered clear of Trump’s unusually sharp criticism of federal judges, the statement Tuesday was similar to a rebuke the chief justice issued in 2018, when he responded to Trump’s remarks by saying that, “we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”
This story is breaking and will be updated.
