Trump rant about impeaching a ‘radical left lunatic’ judge sparks rare scolding from chief justice

Washington: US President Donald Trump has provoked the chief justice of the Supreme Court into a rare public rebuke after he called for a “radical left lunatic” judge to be impeached amid an escalating war against the American judiciary.

The Trump administration was enraged when the chief judge of Washington’s federal district court, James Boasberg, ordered a stop to the deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members rounded up by immigration authorities under a rarely used wartime law.

US President Donald Trump and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts.Credit: AP

Though it is just one of many legal fights under way against Trump’s agenda, this battle has become arguably the most high stakes, with the administration accused of ignoring or even wilfully violating the judge’s order to halt the removals and turn around planes that were already in the air.

On Tuesday, following another hearing in the case, Trump urged Congress to remove Boasberg from his post, calling him a “radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama”.

”I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do,” Trump wrote on social media. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY.”

A woman in Caracas, Venezuela, holds a sign that reads in Spanish, “Justice, we are not Tren de Aragua,” during a government-organised rally to protest the US deportation of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang to an El Salvador prison.Credit: AP

Brandon Gill, a rookie Republican congressman from Texas and member of the House judiciary committee, duly submitted impeachment articles against the judge, accusing him of creating a constitutional crisis.

In a rare public statement, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts – a conservative appointed by George W. Bush – rebuked Trump over the comments and implicitly accused the president of overstepping the mark.

“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.”

Trump, who was on the phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine, had not yet responded to the chief justice’s intervention.

“I don’t care what the judges think”: Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan speaks to reporters at the White House.Credit: AP

But earlier events indicate the White House believes it is on a winner by taking a hard line against alleged migrant criminals and the Democrats, activists and even judges it accuses of aiding and abetting them.

In an incendiary Fox News interview, Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan said the administration would not be deterred by court decisions. “We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think, I don’t care what the left thinks – we’re coming,” he said.

Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, also lashed the judge, calling his ruling to temporarily stop the deportations “the most outrageous thing I have seen from a district court judge in my lifetime”.

The administration said it had complied with the judge’s final written orders, but drew a distinction between those and an earlier verbal order to turn around the deportation flights. In court and in public interviews, the White House argued there was a question mark over whether verbal orders counted to the same extent.

On Wednesday (AEDT), the administration ran into another judicial bulwark when a federal judge in Maryland ruled that the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development probably violated the Constitution “in multiple ways”. District Judge Theodore Chuang blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency from making further cuts to the agency.

The gutting of USAID was one of the Trump administration’s early bureaucratic massacres, with nearly all employees stood down and the agency’s activities criticised and misrepresented by Trump, Musk and other figures.

Chuang also ordered the administration to restore email and computer access to all employees of USAID, including those who were placed on administrative leave.

And in another blow to the administration, a federal judge blocked enforcement Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service.

US District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, DC, ruled the order likely violates their constitutional rights but gave the administration time to appeal until Friday.

“The court knows that this opinion will lead to heated public debate and appeals. In a healthy democracy, both are positive outcomes,” Reyes wrote. “We should all agree, however, that every person who has answered the call to serve deserves our gratitude and respect.”

with AP