Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said on Wednesday it’s not right to try to impeach judges if you don’t like their decisions.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Breyer said, quoting a Tuesday statement from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Blitzer asked Breyer about calls from President Donald Trump to impeach Judge James Boasberg, who issued a 14-day restraining order Saturday stopping the deportations of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, whom Trump designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, passed by Congress in 1798, that allows the removal of persons in the country illegally, to deport Tren de Aragua.
But Breyer said that the calls from Trump and others, including Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, who on Tuesday introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg, are inappropriate.
“You move on in the legal process,” Breyer said.
He added, however, that Roberts’ statement, pushing back against the calls for impeachment, was appropriate, which, in full, reads, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Breyer said the statement from Roberts was needed because the vast majority of Americans are not lawyers.
“They’re not judges,” Breyer said. “They don’t know. And this is an informative and educational statement.”
Breyer was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed in 1994, serving until his retirement in 2022, when he was replaced by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
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