House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Jan. 21 that he would support articles of impeachment against some federal judges after congressional Republicans floated the prospect last year.
During a press conference, a reporter asked Johnson about Senate Republicans suggesting that the House bring articles of impeachment against judges. Multiple Republicans have signaled they want to impeach two U.S. district judges, James Boasberg and Deborah Boardman.
“I’m for it,” Johnson said during the Wednesday news conference alongside other Republican House members. “Judge Boasberg is one who’s been mentioned.”
“Impeachment, as we have discussed all together many, many times, is an extreme measure. But extreme times call for extreme measures. And I think some of these judges have gotten so far outside the bounds of where they’re supposed to operate, it would not be, in my view, a bad thing for Congress to lay down the law, so to speak, and to make an example of some of these egregious abuses,” the House speaker said, without naming other judges.
He did not offer a timeline on when impeachment articles could be introduced.
“We’ll see where it goes,” he said.
The House requires a simple majority to impeach an official such as a judge, but the bar is raised much higher in the Senate. A two-thirds majority in the upper chamber is needed to convict and remove an official if and after a House impeachment passes.
The text of the resolution states that Boardman should be impeached for handing down an “indefensibly light sentence” to Roske, who prosecutors had said had traveled to Kavanaugh’s home in June 2022 with a plan to kill the justice before he called the authorities on himself.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the chair of the Commerce Committee, said in a Senate hearing earlier this month that he wants impeachment proceedings against Boardman and Boasberg, saying that “both ... meet the standard for impeachment and for conviction and removal of office.”
Whitehouse, who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Courts Subcommittee, said that in the case, “a notice of appeal has been filed regarding that sentencing, so it remains an active judicial proceeding, not a proper subject of partisan legislative pressure,” according to a Jan. 20 news release from his office.
Whitehouse characterized impeachment suggestions against Boasberg as part of an unjust “barrage of threats by the MAGA movement and the Trump administration” that “appear intended to intimidate” the judge.