Far-right House Republicans are pushing to impeach federal judges, alleging “high crimes and misdemeanors” in response to rulings that opposed actions by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). One congressman denounced a judge as a “predator” and a “radical anti-LGBTQ activist,” while another argued that blocking DOGE reflected bias against Trump voters. A third asserted that Congress has the “authority to impeach judges to defend the will of the people.”
Courthouse News reporter Benjamin S. Weiss notes that three federal judges have been targeted for impeachment by multiple members of Congress.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates
On Monday, U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) made unsubstantiated accusations against Senior Judge John Bates, a Bush appointee serving on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Bates was also appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to serve on the FISA Court and to serve as the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.
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“I just formally introduced articles of impeachment against RADICAL LGBTQ ACTIVIST U.S. District Judge John Bates. His attempt to block President Trump’s order to remove webpages containing resources for ‘gender-affirming care’ from government sites is appalling,” Congressman Ogles declared.
“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,” he alleged, wrongly framing the judge’s actions. “We must protect our children from predators like Judge Bates.”
According to an extensive report in The Washington Post, however, Judge Bates had “ordered the nation’s premier health agencies to restore online access to several websites that monitor HIV, health risks for youths and assisted reproductive technologies, which were abruptly taken offline to ensure they complied with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on gender.”
Judge Bates wrote in his opinion: “By removing long relied upon medical resources without explanation, it is likely that … each agency failed to ‘examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.’”
The Post adds that Bates found “that the health agencies probably violated federal law in taking down the scientific data. He ordered the agencies to restore access to the websites.”
In a video posted to social media (below), however, Rep. Ogles insisted the webpages Bates ordered restored were about “transgender surgeries.” In a press release attacking Judge Bates, Ogles went even further in wrongly characterizing the judge’s actions.
“The continued socialization of this grave moral evil necessitates immediate Congressional action against those promoting it. America’s founders gave Congress the authority to impeach judges to defend the will of the people,” Congressman Ogles falsely claimed. The founders did not give Congress authority to impeach judges to defend the will of the people. “My articles will do just that. It is unacceptable for rogue judges to implicate taxpayers in woke LGBTQ propaganda and the irreversible destruction of children’s bodies.”
U.S. District Chief Judge John “Jack” McConnell Jr.
U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) has “threatened to file articles of impeachment” against U.S. District Chief Judge John “Jack” McConnell Jr. who, Fox News reports, “filed a motion ordering the Trump administration to comply with a previous restraining order. The order temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts to pause federal grants and loans.”
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According to Fox News, “McConnell has since come under fire from Trump supporters and conservatives who have accused him of being a liberal activist after a 2021 video of him saying courts must ‘stand and enforce the rule of law, that is, against arbitrary and capricious actions by what could be a tyrant or could be whatnot’ resurfaced online.”
WPRI reports that Musk wrote on X: “Impeach this activist posing as a judge! Such a person does great discredit to the American justice system,” and later, “Impeach this pseudo-jurist!!”
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer
Last week, U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) filed articles of impeachment alleging U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer “engaged in judicial misconduct when he halted President Donald J. Trump’s Executive order establishing and implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency on purely political grounds, demonstrating clear bias and prejudice against the President and the 74,000,000 Americans who voted for him.”
Congressman Van Orden also charged the judge with “improper handling” of that case.
Reporting on the articles of impeachment, Bloomberg Law noted that U.S. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) is also filing to impeach Judge Engelmayer.
In a press release, Congressman Crane says Judge Engelmayer “responded to an overtly political emergency request by 19 Democratic attorneys general aiming to prevent Trump administration officials from accessing a payment system within the Treasury Department.”
Bloomberg reported that the “acts against Engelmayer come after Musk called for judicial impeachments, in response to judges issuing court orders that blocked many Trump administration actions.”
During Musk’s Oval Office press conference, President Trump, Axios reported, had said, “Maybe we have to look at the judges because I think that’s a very serious violation.”
But it was Vice President JD Vance who perhaps made the most waves when he wrongly claimed that federal judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Watch Congressman Ogles’ video below or at this link.