House Republicans are drafting articles of impeachment against Democrat judges that have blocked various actions by the Trump administration, including those who have halted efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
According to The Hill:
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.”
"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," Crane told former Rep. Matt Gaetz earlier this week.
Greene, meanwhile, said that she would support Engelmayer's impeachment - arguing that judges can't simply take power away from Cabinet secretaries.
"They can’t do that, especially when they have a serious record of Democrat activism and being hardcore against President Trump," said Greene, adding "So, yeah, judges like that, they definitely should be impeached."
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority."
Engelmayer initially blocked everyone at the Treasury Department - including Secretary Scott Bessent, from accessing the agency's database, however another judge overseeing the case later said that the order would not apply to Bessent.
Rep. Clyde announced that he was working on impeachment articles, saying in a post on X that Judge McConnell Jr. is "a partisan activist weaponizing our judicial system to stop President Trump’s funding freeze on woke and wasteful government spending."
It would take near-unanimous support from House Republicans to impeach one of the judges assuming no Democrats support the measure, while Democrat support would definitely be required to clear the 2/3 threshold to convict in the Senate.
So basically, this is going nowhere.
"Up till last Congress, the Speaker of the House had never been fired before," said Crane. "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."