Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.
Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.
Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.
And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.
The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.
But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.
And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.
Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.
America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.
If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.
The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?
This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.
The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.
So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.
This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.
Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.
The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.
RELATED: Trump shrugs at immigration law — here’s what he should have said
President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.
That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.
Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.
It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.
Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified Tuesday before his former colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the State Department's fiscal year 2026 budget request. Democratic senators seized upon the opportunity to attack Rubio and the Trump administration, characterizing the government's foreign policy as regressive, oppressive, and isolationist.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), in particular, complained about the house-cleaning executed at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the cancellation of radical foreigners' student visas, the deportation of criminal noncitizens, and the admission of white refugees from South Africa.
Rubio coolly dismantled Democrats' critiques and drove home the message that mature foreign policy "requires a balancing of interests"; that the U.S. is not withdrawing from the world but engaging in a way that "makes America stronger, safer, and more prosperous"; and that he does not answer to meddlesome federal judges when it comes to foreign policy engagements abroad.
Van Hollen, fresh off trying to bring a Salvadoran MS-13 affiliate accused of domestic abuse and human trafficking back into the U.S., told Rubio, "Like the McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s, your campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy."
RELATED: Liberals rage after Trump welcomes white refugees to US: 'Farce and a sham'
"I have to tell you directly and personally," continued Van Hollen, "that I regret voting for you for secretary of state."
Rubio immediately made Van Hollen regret his closing statement, replying, "First of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job."
The secretary of state then explained why the Democrat was off the mark about the changes at USAID — Van Hollen suggested cuts at the agency have already led to deaths in Sudan — and other actions taken by the administration in recent months.
"I'm very proud of the work we've done over at the USAID," said Rubio. "For example, I don't regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique. I don't know how that makes us stronger or more prosperous as a nation."
'The evidence is going to be clear in the days to come.'
"I could go on and on," continued Rubio, running down a list of other wasteful USAID grants and programs eliminated under his leadership.
Rubio then addressed a matter near and dear to Van Hollen's heart: the deportation of suspected terrorist gang members to El Salvador.
RELATED: Dems' favorite MS-13 associate ran human trafficking operations, says ex-boss
"We deported gang members, gang members — including the one you had a margarita with," said Rubio. "And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gangbanger, and ... the evidence is going to be clear in the days to come."
'The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.'
Rubio was referring to MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national the Trump administration deported on March 15.
Van Hollen is chief among the Democrats who have tried to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite his initial illegal entry into the homeland, his failure to appear for hearings on traffic violations, the domestic abuse allegations lodged against him, his links to a terrorist gang, his identification by two immigration courts as a danger to the community, and his alleged history of human trafficking.
Last month, Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and shared an intimate moment over drinks.
— (@)
Van Hollen, enraged by the margarita comment, tried to interject, but Committee Chairman James Risch (R-Idaho) cleared Rubio to continue setting the Democrat straight, this time about the separation of powers.
"The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy. No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I need to say to them. And if I do reach to that foreign partner and talk to them, I am under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch," said Rubio. "Just like a judge cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister of Russia, they cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister or the president of El Salvador."
'If you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa.'
Rubio's issue with the judiciary is not hypothetical. An Obama judge ordered the Trump administration on April 4 to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.
"If I started sharing with courts or the media my conversations with foreign leaders and all of their details, no foreign leader would talk to me again, and we would break trust with them," added Rubio. "Diplomacy doesn't work that way."
The secretary of state also addressed Van Hollen's concerns about terminating radical foreigners' student visas, stressing that visas are a privilege, not a right, and that "if you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, I'm going to find you, and I'm going to revoke it."
Blaze News reached out to the State Department for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
-
When NBC’s Kristen Welker asked President Trump last Sunday whether illegal aliens have due process rights, he hedged.
“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials,” Trump replied on “Meet the Press.”
That’s not even close to good enough. Trump should have responded clearly and forcefully: While everyone enjoys due process before being criminally punished, deportation is not punishment. It’s an administrative action that flows from national sovereignty.
Illegal aliens do not possess the same due process rights as citizens. They can make their case to immigration officials — but those officials retain full discretion to deny their request and carry out removal. We’re not jailing these people; they are free to return home on their own. If they refuse, we remove them — just like any homeowner would remove a trespasser.
The analogy is simple. If a burglar breaks into your home, you can’t torture or imprison him without a trial. But you absolutely can — and should — force him to leave.
That’s why deportation proceedings don’t come with government-funded lawyers. The law is clear: “In any removal proceedings before an immigration judge ... the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented (at no expense to the Government) by such counsel.”
The United States must enforce its borders — not apologize for them.
Trump’s hesitation creates the impression that illegal aliens do enjoy full due process under immigration law — but implementing it would just be too hard. That argument doesn’t persuade. The American people don’t want laws ignored simply because enforcing them is difficult.
Welker pushed further: “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”
Trump replied: “I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”
But we should never confuse what the Supreme Court says with what the Constitution requires. The court has long recognized that immigration law operates under different standards. The power to exclude or remove aliens lies entirely with Congress and the executive branch, not the judiciary.
The constitutional, statutory, and philosophical basis for removing aliens without full judicial due process is overwhelming. The historical record speaks for itself:
1. Gouverneur Morris, Constitutional Convention debates (1787):
“Every society from a great nation down to a club had the right of declaring the conditions on which new members should be admitted, there can be room for no complaint.”
2. William Rawle, “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America” (2nd edition):
“In a republic the sovereignty resides essentially, and entirely in the people. Those only who compose the people, and partake of this sovereignty are citizens, they alone can elect, and are capable of being elected to public offices, and of course they alone can exercise authority within the community: they possess an unqualified right to the enjoyment of property and personal immunity, they are bound to adhere to it in peace, to defend it in war, and to postpone the interests of all other countries to the affection which they ought to bear for their own.”
3. Chief Justice John Marshall, The Exchange v. McFaddon (1812):
“The jurisdiction of the nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute. It is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself. Any restriction upon it deriving validity from an external source would imply a diminution of its sovereignty to the extent of the restriction and an investment of that sovereignty to the same extent in that power which could impose such restriction. All exceptions, therefore, to the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself. They can flow from no other legitimate source.”
4. Nishimura Ekiu v. United States (1892):
“It is an accepted maxim of international law that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe.”
5. Chae Chan Ping v. United States (1889):
“That the government of the United States, through the action of the legislative department, can exclude aliens from its territory is a proposition which we do not think open to controversy. Jurisdiction over its own territory to that extent is an incident of every independent nation. It is a part of its independence. If it could not exclude aliens it would be to that extent subject to the control of another power.”
6. Kansas v. Colorado (1907):
“Self-preservation is the highest right and duty of a Nation.”
7. Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893):
“The right of a nation to expel or deport foreigners who have not been naturalized, or taken any steps towards becoming citizens of the country, rests upon the same grounds, and is as absolute and unqualified as the right to prohibit and prevent their entrance into the country.”
8. Justice James Iredell, Charge to Grand Jury (1799):
“Any alien coming to this country must or ought to know, that this being an independent nation, it has all the rights concerning the removal of aliens which belong by the law of nations to any other; that while he remains in the country in the character of an alien, he can claim no other privilege than such as an alien is entitled to, and consequently, whatever [risk] he may incur in that capacity is incurred voluntarily, with the hope that in due time by his unexceptionable conduct, he may become a citizen of the United States.”
9. Emer de Vattel, “The Law of Nations” (1797):
“Every nation has the right to refuse to admit a foreigner into the country, when he cannot enter without putting the nation in evident danger, or doing it a manifest injury. ... Thus, also, it has a right to send them elsewhere, if it has just cause to fear that they will corrupt the manners of the citizens; that they will create religious disturbances, or occasion any other disorder, contrary to the public safety. In a word, it has a right, and is even obliged, in this respect, to follow the rules which prudence dictates.”
10. Lem Moon Sing v. United States (1895):
“The power of Congress to exclude aliens altogether from the United States, or to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which they may come to this country, and to have its declared policy in that regard enforced exclusively through executive officers, without judicial intervention, is settled by our previous adjudications.”
11. Knauff v. Shaughnessy(1950):
“The admission of aliens to this country is not a right, but a privilege, which is granted only upon such terms as the United States prescribes. … The decision to admit or to exclude an alien may be lawfully placed with the [p]resident, who may in turn delegate the carrying out of this function to a responsible executive officer. ... The action of the executive officer under such authority is final and conclusive. Whatever the rule may be concerning deportation of persons who have gained entry into the United States, it is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien.”
12. Fiallo v. Bell (1977):
“This Court has repeatedly emphasized that ‘over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over’ the admission of aliens.”
13. Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952):
“We think that, in the present state of the world, it would be rash and irresponsible to reinterpret our fundamental law to deny or qualify the Government’s power of deportation. ... Reform in this field must be entrusted to the branches of the Government in control of our international relations and treatymaking powers. We hold that the Act is not invalid under the Due Process Clause.”
14. Lem Moon Sing v. U.S. (1895):
“As to such persons [non-citizens wishing to remain in the U.S.], the decisions of executive or administrative officers, acting within powers expressly conferred by [C]ongress, are due process of law.”
15. Galvan v. Press(1954):
“Policies pertaining to the entry of aliens and their right to remain here are peculiarly concerned with the political conduct of government ... that the formulation of these policies is entrusted exclusively to Congress has become about as firmly imbedded ... as any aspect of our government.”
16. Justice Robert Jackson (dissenting), Shaughnessy v. Mezei (1953):
“Due process does not invest any alien with a right to enter the United States, nor confer on those admitted the right to remain against the national will.”
17. Turner v. Williams (1904):
“No limits can be put by the courts upon the power of Congress to protect, by summary methods, the country from the advent of aliens. ... But to declare unlawful residence within the country to be an infamous crime, punishable by deprivation of liberty and property, would be to pass out of the sphere of constitutional legislation unless provision were made that the fact of guilt should first be established by a judicial trial.”
18. Fong Yue Ting v. U.S.(1893):
“The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime. It is not a banishment, in the sense in which that word is often applied. ... It is but a method of enforcing the return to his own country of an alien who has not complied with the conditions.”
Trump never should have equivocated on immigration law — or deferred to his lawyers. The Constitution, the courts, America’s founders, and common sense all say the same thing: Noncitizens do not enjoy an absolute right to remain in the United States. Deportation does not violate due process because deportation is not punishment. It is the lawful exercise of sovereignty.
The United States must enforce its borders — not apologize for them.
“Sovereignty” may have won the Kentucky Derby. But if it’s going to win in Washington, Republicans need to stop stalling and start delivering.
Many of us backed Donald Trump in 2024 with a clear, urgent checklist of national priorities. None matter more than mass deportations. Only one real legislative vehicle remains to force the issue: budget reconciliation.
If Republicans won’t use the reconciliation bill to cut inflation, they should at least use it to shut down the invasion.
Let’s be blunt. Republicans have no plan to cut spending. The only debate is how much debt they’ll add. That leaves mass deportations as the last major policy goal still backed by both the White House and much of the GOP.
Yet under current judicial norms, each of the 20 million deportations could require a court fight. At this pace, Trump would remove fewer than 1 million people by the end of his term — only to be followed by a radical Democrat ready to usher in 20 million more.
What’s the solution?
The House Judiciary Committee earmarked $81.4 billion for ICE and deportation-related activities in its reconciliation bill. But that money means nothing — worse, it only inflates the debt — if we don’t fix the lawfare loopholes and end the legal incentives that fuel this invasion.
This isn’t just about funding. It’s a matter of policy. The final reconciliation bill must include structural legal reforms. Otherwise, the invasion continues — with billions wasted in the process.
According to sources, congressional allies plan to attach an amendment to upcoming legislation that would put an end to immigration-related lawfare once and for all.
The proposal would bar anyone who isn’t a green card holder — including all illegal aliens and temporary visa holders — from gaining standing in Article III courts to challenge their deportation. In other words, rulings by immigration judges would be final. Unless the government seeks to imprison someone on criminal charges, no foreign national has a due-process right to remain in the country against the national will. The bill simply reaffirms long-standing principles that activist judges have chipped away at for years.
The amendment also tackles lawfare targeting red states trying to enforce immigration laws. Once Trump leaves office, a legal backstop must be in place to prevent a fresh wave of illegal immigration from overrunning states like Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Idaho.
Federal judges have repeatedly blocked these states from criminalizing illegal presence. This bill would strip federal courts of jurisdiction in such cases. Any legal challenge would go through state courts instead, making state supreme court rulings final and beyond the reach of federal review.
Unless Trump starts ignoring rogue judicial rulings, this legislation is his only realistic path to carrying out mass deportations.
He must go all in and make it clear to Congress that he won’t accept procedural excuses about the Byrd Rule or Senate parliamentarian objections. The Senate majority can overrule the parliamentarian — something they already plan to do to pass tax cuts.
This is Trump’s moment to force the issue. No more delays. No more legal sabotage. No more excuses.
The House Judiciary Committee’s draft of the major spending bill includes a provision aimed at curbing judicial abuse — but it doesn’t go far enough.
The measure would require judges to collect a bond from plaintiffs seeking injunctions against the federal government. If they fail to collect it, their rulings would be void under Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
But the reform is too narrow to matter. The NGOs suing to block immigration enforcement have deep pockets. Judges can easily set token bond amounts that do nothing to deter meritless lawsuits.
Still, the provision proves a vital point: Republican leadership is willing to include policy-related language in a reconciliation bill when it suits them. That means nothing prevents them from going further and defunding litigation aimed at sabotaging deportations.
This is Trump’s last real chance to salvage his immigration agenda. Reconciliation offers his clearest shot at using party control to pursue an objective he can’t afford to lose.
If Republicans won’t use the reconciliation bill to cut inflation, they should at least use it to shut down the invasion.
The U.S. Supreme Court sided Monday with President Donald Trump, lifting an Obama judge's order that temporarily blocked the president's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected terrorists who have stolen into the homeland.
While Trump called it a "great day for justice in America!" and Attorney General Pam Bondi said the decision was "a landmark victory for the rule of law," the fight was apparently not over. The high court afforded alien enemies and their leftist champions another opportunity to challenge removals under the act by the Trump administration, explaining that their lawsuits must be brought where they are being held — not in Washington, D.C.
The American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union seized upon that opportunity on Tuesday, filing a lawsuit in a Democratic enclave on behalf of a pair of military-age Venezuelan nationals fit for removal under the Alien Enemies Act.
One of the illegal aliens is a supposedly non-straight 21-year-old Venezuelan national who entered the U.S. in May 2024 and was subsequently identified by the Department of Homeland Security as an "associate/affiliate of Tren de Aragua." The other is a 32-year-old Venezuelan who stole into the U.S. in 2022, allegedly because his political activism back home jeopardized his safety. Both illegal aliens were parties to the ACLU's original lawsuit targeting the administration's use of the AEA.
The Trump administration is targeting Venezuelan nationals who are members of the terrorist organization, 'are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States.'
The ACLU has asked a Clinton appointee, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, to assume jurisdiction, to block the Trump administration from removing the illegal aliens under the act, and to certify the Venezuelan duo as representatives of a class of illegal aliens.
A judge ordered the Trump administration to refrain from ousting the two men before a hearing Wednesday morning, as it had with hundreds of others under the AEA in March, reported The Hill.
The lawsuit claims that Trump's proclamation "contorts the plain language" of the 1798 law; the AEA "plainly only applies to warlike actions"; Venezuelan nationals are not invading the U.S.; Venezuela "has not launched a predatory incursion" into the country; "'mass illegal immigration' or criminal activities, as described in the Proclamation, plainly do not fall within the statutory boundaries"; and the use of the AEA has caused and will continue to cause the apparent alien enemies harm.
In his March 15 proclamation titled "Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren De Aragua," Trump stated that Tren de Aragua — which his administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization — "is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States."
"TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela," added the president.
Contrary to the suggestion in the lawsuit, the Trump administration is targeting Venezuelan nationals who are members of the terrorist organization, "are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies."
The ACLU is, therefore, pushing for a class action lawsuit against the administration on behalf of suspected foreign terrorists.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement on the liberal X knockoff Bluesky, "No one should face the horrifying prospect of lifelong imprisonment without a fair hearing, let alone in another country."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement last week declaring that “for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.” His remarks come amid renewed debate over the scope of judicial accountability, as some conservatives, including President Trump, have called for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg over his handling of cases related to deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
Roberts’ assertion, while reflective of modern norms, oversimplifies history. The reality is more complicated: Judicial impeachment has, at times, been driven by judicial decisions and the conduct surrounding them. While impeachment should not be a routine mechanism for challenging case outcomes, history shows it has been used when a judge’s rulings indicate persistent bias, a disregard for legal constraints, or an abuse of judicial authority.
If a judge consistently rules in a manner that defies constitutional limits, impeachment is not a rejection of judicial independence — it is a safeguard against judicial tyranny.
The clearest rebuttal to Roberts’ statement is the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in 1804. Chase, a staunch Federalist, was accused of allowing his political views to shape his rulings, particularly in cases related to the Sedition Act. The House of Representatives impeached him for what was effectively a judicial philosophy that his opponents found intolerable.
The Senate ultimately acquitted Chase, but the very fact that he was impeached — explicitly for his conduct on the bench — undermines the claim that judicial decisions have never been a basis for impeachment.
Chase’s case is not an outlier. In 1803, Judge John Pickering was impeached and removed, partially for erratic behavior but also for making decisions Congress viewed as improper and politically motivated. Judge West Humphreys, a Confederate sympathizer, was removed in 1862 in part because his rulings reflected active opposition to federal law. These cases show that, historically, judicial decisions and their consequences have been central to impeachment discussions.
Roberts’ statement implies a rigid wall between impeachment and judicial decision-making, but the Constitution draws no such line.
Article III, Section 1 provides that judges hold office “during good Behaviour,” a standard distinct from the more lenient protections given to elected officials. Article II, Section 4 allows impeachment for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” That last phrase, historically interpreted to include abuses of power, opens the door to judicial decisions being relevant — not as mere policy disagreements, but as evidence of a judge’s failure to uphold his duties impartially.
Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 81 acknowledged that judicial misconduct, including decisions reflecting personal bias or disregard for the law, could be grounds for impeachment. The notion that impeachment exists only for personal corruption, rather than judicial overreach or defiance of legal norms, is a modern interpretation rather than an ironclad constitutional principle.
The key distinction between a bad decision and an impeachable ruling is that the latter falls into a pattern of rulings that indicate a judge is abandoning his role as a neutral arbiter. A single controversial opinion does not justify impeachment, but if a judge repeatedly defies precedent, injects personal ideology into his decisions, or rules in ways that ignore constitutional limits, impeachment could be an appropriate remedy.
Consider the executive branch: A president is not impeached simply for enacting an unpopular policy, but if he abuses his authority, Congress has the power to remove him. The same reasoning applies to the judiciary. If a judge consistently rules in a manner that defies constitutional limits, impeachment is not a rejection of judicial independence — it is a safeguard against judicial tyranny.
None of this is to say that impeachment should be a routine check on judicial power. Judicial independence requires that courts be protected from political retaliation.
But the absolutist claim that impeachment is never an appropriate response to judicial decisions erases historical precedent and ignores the Constitution’s broader framework. Impeachment is not a tool for re-litigating every case, but neither is it an untouchable relic of the past.
Whether or not Congress agrees with Trump that Judge Boasberg should be impeached, it is essential that both judges and lawmakers recognize impeachment as a legitimate constitutional mechanism when a judge is no longer upholding his duty. The debate should not be about whether judicial decisions can ever warrant impeachment — they have before, and they will again — but about where the line is drawn between bad rulings and a true abandonment of judicial responsibility.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
By continuing to face this crisis with appeals to higher courts, the president is bringing a knife to a gun fight. He should instead bring a howitzer.
Fixing the broken D.C. judicial appointment process is straightforward: Replace it with the process that already exists for nominating, confirming, and appointing every Article III federal judge.
Fresh off the presidential election, Wisconsin voters are again enduring political ads vigorous get-out-the-vote efforts.
This obstruction is far from what the framers intended.
www.theblaze.com
thefederalist.com