Republican files article of impeachment against judge who ordered agencies to restore scrubbed data
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) on Monday introduced an impeachment resolution against a federal judge who ordered federal health agencies to temporarily restore online datasets scrubbed as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on “gender ideology.”
The article of impeachment says U.S. District Judge John Bates’s conduct in the case was “so utterly lacking in intellectual honesty and basic integrity that he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Earlier this month, Bates agreed with a left-leaning physicians group that federal health agencies likely violated federal law when they took down various data to align with President Trump’s executive order recognizing only two sexes.
“At no point in American history has the judiciary considered the surgical or chemical castration of healthy children to be a compelling or even legitimate health concern and it shouldn't start now. We must protect our children from predators like Judge Bates,” Ogles wrote on the social platform X.
Bates sits on Washington, D.C.’s federal trial court and was appointed to the bench by the younger former President Bush in 2001. Bates declined to comment through a court spokesperson.
Impeaching federal judges has become an exceedingly rare occurrence. A majority of the House would need to vote to impeach Bates, and to remove him from office, two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to convict.
Ogles’s new resolution comes after another Republican congressman, Rep. Eli Crane (Ariz.), introduced articles of impeachment against a New York-based federal judge who temporarily blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from gaining access to critical Treasury Department payment system.
Musk has stepped up his attacks on judges who have ruled against the administration and reposted Ogles's impeachment article announcement in an apparent show of support.
"Time to impeach judges who violate the law," Musk wrote on X.
The health website data case revolves around a provision of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) that requires agencies to provide adequate notice before terminating significant information products. A similar lawsuit was filed Monday over climate datasets scrubbed from government websites.
Though Bates’s order required the Trump administration to restore various health datasets, the ruling is only temporary and is set to expire Tuesday. The parties have split on the proper next steps.
The left-leaning group that is suing wants the judge’s order to be extended. The Trump administration wants the order to expire, but it committed to conducting a “review to determine the applicability of” the PRA and “take the steps necessary to comply” once the review is complete.
Updated at 4:55 pm EST.
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