President Donald Trump has become increasingly fixated on impeaching federal judges who rule against his efforts to dismantle the federal government and civil service, but while some far-right Republicans have jumped on board and introduced impeachment articles, key congressional figures loyal to Trump have acknowledged it has "little chance of passing," Politico reported on Tuesday.
A recent ruling that sent Republicans into a fury came from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who hit the brakes on Trump's mass deportation of dozens of people the administration claims to be members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua, ruling that the administration had not afforded these suspects due process.
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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs a key subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, stated in a hearing this week on "judicial overreach" that some lawmakers are only putting up a show of trying to impeach judges “because they were popular and felt strongly within their district, whether or not they were moving anywhere.”
He posed this theory to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a right-wing firebrand and Trump supporter, who agreed and said, “They’re political symbols, not legislative symbols.”
While Issa acknowledged impeachment efforts likely won't go anywhere, he is advancing his own plan to kneecap the judiciary's ability to check Trump's agenda.
Specifically, he has introduced a bill called the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would severely limit the ability of lower court judges to issue injunctions that apply nationwide rather than to the specific people bringing a lawsuit. The bill, which is all but certain to fail in the Senate even if it passes the House, comes after Republicans and right-wing groups themselves relied on nationwide injunctions excessively throughout the Biden administration, from blocking student loan forgiveness to trying to revoke FDA approval for abortion medication.