WASHINGTON — Over President Donald Trump’s first six weeks in office, the nation has seen a flurry of executive orders, memorandums and proclamations — not to mention sweeping actions from a full-force federal government downsizing campaign — coming out of the country’s highest office. 

What has closely followed is a barrage of lawsuits and, with it, an emerging trend: Republican members of Congress and Elon Musk, the unofficial leader of Trump’s downsizing effort, calling for judges ruling against the administration on such cases to be impeached. 

What You Need To Know

  • As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service is hit with a flurry of lawsuits, there has been an emerging trend: Republican members of Congress and Musk calling for judges ruling on such cases to be impeached
  • And on Monday, the American Bar Association felt compelled to hit back, warning of a “clear and disconcerting pattern” bubbling over
  • Constitutional law professor at the UNC Chapel Hill Michael Gerhardt impeachment is the only way to remove an Article III judge and the process plays out in Congress, where it must clear the high bar of getting majority approval in the House and two-thirds of Senators for a judge to be convicted 
  • The impeachment and especially the conviction of a federal judge is very rare in U.S. history, the former having taken place just 15 times and the latter just eight times, according to the Federal Judicial Center

In the last few weeks, Musk has at times flooded his X page with his desire for judges to be ousted — sometimes singling out specific officials and at one point requesting “an immediate wave of judicial impeachments.” Last week, a Republican member of Congress said he introduced articles of impeachment against two separate judges after they issued rulings unfavorable to the Trump administration.

And on Monday, the American Bar Association felt compelled to hit back, warning of a “clear and disconcerting pattern” bubbling over. 

“If a court issues a decision this administration does not agree with, the judge is targeted,” the ABA wrote in a statement, going on to note that “High-ranking government officials,” both appointed and elected, have made “repeated calls for the impeachment of judges who issue opinions with which the government does not agree.”

So what exactly is the process to remove a judge and how common is it? 

Noting the increased attention on the federal court system, Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said historically there has been an emphasis placed on the separation of Article III judges — whom he said are nominated by a president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and have the authority to review the constitutionality of an administration’s actions — and the politics often surrounding some of the cases they are ruling on. 

“There used to be bipartisan agreement within Congress on the importance of judicial independence," Gerhardt said. "So that was a value that both sides agreed on. I think that's breaking down.” 

The impeachment and especially the conviction of a federal judge is very rare in U.S. history. According to the Federal Judicial Center, only 15 federal judges have ever been impeached, with just eight being convicted. Four were acquitted while the remaining three resigned from office before a decision was reached. 

Only five of the cases took place in the last five decades and only two since the turn of the century. And in almost all of the cases, Gerhardt said, the underlying reason for impeachment followed a similar theme: It had to do more with the “integrity” of a judge as opposed to their decision-making in the courtroom. 

“If somebody, for example, lied on their taxes and committed tax fraud — that was Harry Claiborne — that person was impeached and convicted,” Gerhardt said. “If a person was found or committed perjury or ... bribery — that's Alcee Hastings — or a federal judge was found guilty in a court for having lied to a grand jury, that also could serve as a basis.

“But those different impeachment proceedings, those were all done in the late 1980s. They focused on what we'll call misbehavior or misconduct by those judges,” he added. “It had nothing to do with whether or not they were good judges or the kinds of decisions they reached.”

According to the Federal Judicial Center, of the two most recent times a federal judge faced impeachment — in 2009 and 2010 — one was on charges of sexual assault, obstructing and impeding an official proceeding, and making false and misleading statements, while the other was based on charges of accepting bribes and making false statements under penalty of perjury.

Impeachment, he noted, is the only way to remove an Article III judge and the process plays out in Congress. Such a move begins in the House with a lawmaker filing articles of impeachment against a judge — as Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., did twice last week. It then has to be approved by a majority of members in the lower chamber before it goes to trial in the Senate. There, two-thirds of members in the upper chamber have to back the move for the judge to be convicted and removed — a high bar in a closely divided body that Gerhardt notes makes it unlikely any call or effort made thus far since Trump has taken office would be successful. 

“There's no way in the world there's going to be two-thirds of the Senate that are agreeing to remove a  judge for any ruling on any of President Trump's executive orders,” he said. “That’s not going to happen.

“There's a process within judiciary to deal with the decisions of lower court judges, which is they get appealed,” he noted. “So that process is thought to generally provide a mechanism for dealing with any federal district judges that make mistakes, or any lower court judges whose rulings have to be reconsidered.”