House Republicans plot impeachment against judges blocking Trump, DOGE
A few House Republicans are pledging to bring up impeachment articles against federal judges who have blocked Trump administration actions, including those of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), backing up tech billionaire Elon Musk’s call for a "wave of judicial impeachments.”
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) said he is drafting articles of impeachment against Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, who in a ruling last weekend temporarily restricted Musk and DOGE aides from accessing a Treasury Department payment system.
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) is working on an impeachment resolution against Rhode Island District Judge John McConnell Jr. over his ruling halting the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding.
And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), chair of the House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee, pledged in a hearing this week while referencing Engelmayer that “We will hold this judge and others who try to stop the will of the people and their elected leaders accountable.”
The actions follow the lead of Trump and the White House, with Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt asserting Wednesday that “district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority.”
Crane went on a One America News Network show hosted by former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) this week to elaborate on his impeachment resolution plans.
“Our case for impeaching Judge Engelmayer is basically that he's an activist judge trying to stop the Trump administration from, you know, executing their, you know, Article 2 powers to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed,” the Arizona Republican said.
Greene told The Hill that she would support the impeachment of Engelmayer, saying judges cannot take away power from Cabinet secretaries.
“They can't do that, especially when they have a serious record of Democrat activism and being hardcore against President Trump,” Greene said. “So, yeah, judges like that, they definitely should be impeached.”
The Justice Department argued that Engelmayer’s order could be read to include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but another judge overseeing the case later said the order would not apply to Bessent.
Clyde confirmed he was working on impeachment articles against McConnell in a post on the social platform X, calling the judge “a partisan activist weaponizing our judicial system to stop President Trump’s funding freeze on woke and wasteful government spending.”
Asked about the impeachment threat over the ruling, the District Court of Rhode Island public information officer said McConnell "does not speak to the press during the pendency of a case." The Southern District of New York did not immediately return a request for comment regarding Engelmayer.
House GOP leaders have not weighed in on the calls to impeach the judges — and the chances of such an effort succeeding in their removal is close to zero.
It would take near-unanimous support from House Republicans to impeach a judge if Democrats do not support the measure, and support from Democrats would be required to clear the two-thirds threshold to convict on impeachment articles in the Senate.
But Crane is taking a “never say never” attitude despite those odds.
“Up till last Congress, the Speaker of the House had never been fired before,” he said. “I'm not a wait-and-see kind of guy — look around, hope somebody's going to do something. I'm going to take action. And like I said, If this isn't how we get to the, you know, the place that we need to be, I'm fine with that. But I'm not going to sit around and just, you know, watch these individuals stop President Trump from doing exactly what he told the American people he was going to do.”
Congress last impeached and removed a federal judge in 2010.
Updated at 3:57 p.m. EST
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