House Speaker Endorses Impeachment of Federal Judges Over Rulings

‘Extreme times call for extreme measures,’ Speaker Mike Johnson said.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 21, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Jan. 21 that he would support articles of impeachment against some federal judges after congressional Republicans floated the prospect in 2025.

During a press conference, a reporter asked Johnson about Senate Republicans’ suggestion that the House bring articles of impeachment against judges. Multiple Republicans have signaled that they want to impeach two U.S. district judges, James Boasberg and Deborah Boardman.

“I’m for it,” Johnson said during the Jan. 21 news conference alongside other Republican House members. “Judge Boasberg is one who’s been mentioned.”

“Impeachment, as we have discussed all together many, many times, is an extreme measure,“ he said. ”But extreme times call for extreme measures. And I think some of these judges have gotten so far outside the bounds of where they’re supposed to operate, it would not be, in my view, a bad thing for Congress to lay down the law, so to speak, and to make an example of some of these egregious abuses.”

He did not name other judges or offer a timeline on when impeachment articles could be introduced.

“We’ll see where it goes,” he said.

The House requires a simple majority to impeach an official such as a judge, but the bar is raised much higher in the Senate. A two-thirds majority in the upper chamber is needed to convict and remove an official after a House impeachment passes.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) in March 2025 introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg following court decisions that barred Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan illegal immigrant gang members. The lawmaker also moved to introduce articles to impeach Boasberg in November 2025 over a separate decision related to the Arctic Frost investigation.

In October 2025, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced an impeachment resolution targeting Boardman for her sentencing of a man accused of plotting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The man, Nicholas Roske, was sentenced to eight years in prison; prosecutors had sought upward of 30 years of imprisonment.

The text of the resolution states that Boardman should be impeached for handing down an “indefensibly light sentence” to Roske, who prosecutors had said had traveled to Kavanaugh’s home in June 2022 with a plan to kill the justice before he called the authorities on himself.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the chair of the Commerce Committee, said in a Senate hearing earlier this month that he wants impeachment proceedings against Boardman and Boasberg, saying that “both ... meet the standard for impeachment and for conviction and removal of office.”

Democrats in Congress have said, however, that the impeachment efforts are misguided and pointless. Among them is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who said in a statement this week that a call to impeach Boardman over the Roske sentencing “contradicts basic law and history.”

Whitehouse, who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, said that in the case, “a notice of appeal has been filed regarding that sentencing, so it remains an active judicial proceeding, not a proper subject of partisan legislative pressure,” according to a Jan. 20 statement from his office.

Whitehouse characterized the suggestion of impeaching Boasberg as part of an unjust “barrage of threats by the MAGA movement and the Trump administration” that “appear intended to intimidate” the judge.