WASHINGTON – House Speaker Mike Johnson said Congress has broad authority over the federal courts Tuesday, as lawmakers search for a response to district judges who have blocked President Donald Trump’s actions.
“We do have authority over the federal courts,” Johnson said at a press conference. “We can eliminate an entire district court, we have power of funding over the courts and all these other things. But desperate times call for desperate measures and Congress is going to act.”
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Johnson later said that he did not mean the comment as a threat, but was instead “trying to illustrate we have a broad scope of authority over the courts.”
Last week, Trump called for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg, a U.S. district judge who ordered the administration to temporarily halt the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
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Several House Republicans introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg and other judges, but the effort is likely dead on arrival as Republicans do not have enough votes in the Senate to bypass the filibuster.
Instead, House Republicans are considering other ways to limit judges who deliver unfavorable opinions. Next week, the chamber will vote on a bill from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. that would limit district judges’ authority to provide injunctive relief, such as in the case of Trump’s deportation plan.
Johnson told reporters that there is a problem with “activist judges” issuing political judgments against the president.
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“It is a dangerous trend,” Johnson said. “It violates our system itself, it violates separation of powers when a judge thinks they can enjoin something that a president is doing.”
Earlier this month, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare rebuke to calls by Trump and other Republicans for the impeachment of federal judges over unfavorable decisions.
Article III of the Constitution says judicial power of the U.S. “shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”
