Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) called on House Republicans Tuesday to begin impeachment proceedings against District Judge James Boasberg, hours after a federal appeals court ordered the Obama-appointed jurist to shut down his criminal contempt investigation into Trump administration officials involved in deportation flights to El Salvador.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals didn't mince words. A 2-1 panel majority found that Boasberg's pursuit of contempt charges against former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other senior executive branch officials amounted to a "clear abuse of discretion," an "improper investigation," and a "legal dead end." The court described the probe as "intrusive", and ordered it stopped, as the New York Post reported.
Schmitt wasted no time. Writing on X, the Missouri senator framed the appeals court ruling as vindication and the judge's conduct as grounds for removal.
"The DC Circuit ruled Boasberg's contempt crusade against Trump officials is an 'improper investigation' and 'clear abuse of discretion.' He tried to imprison Trump officials for deporting Venezuelan gang members. I'm calling on the House: Impeach Rogue Judge Boasberg."
The demand lands squarely on the desk of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has previously left the door open to action against Boasberg. Jordan's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The confrontation traces back to last March, when the Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of suspected Tren De Aragua gang members, illegal Venezuelan migrants with alleged gang ties, to El Salvador. Boasberg had issued an emergency court order blocking the deportation flights. The administration proceeded anyway, and the judge launched his contempt probe to determine whether officials had willfully violated his order.
That probe targeted Noem and other top executive branch officials. For months, it hung over the administration like an unresolved threat, a single district judge wielding the contempt power to potentially jail senior officials for carrying out a deportation policy the president had authorized under a statute that has been on the books for more than two centuries.
The appeals court's rebuke effectively ended that threat. But for Schmitt and a growing number of Republican senators, the ruling only confirmed what they had been arguing: that Boasberg had overstepped his authority from the start.
Schmitt went further in a separate post on X, arguing that Boasberg "forced himself onto" the Alien Enemies Act case last March, "just a few days after trying to foment a constitutional crisis at a Judicial Conference meeting."
That allegation has a paper trail. Then-Justice Department official Chad Mizelle filed a misconduct complaint last July with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In it, Mizelle described a March 11 judicial conference attended by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges. Mizelle wrote that Boasberg strayed from the traditional topics at that meeting to lobby his fellow jurists.
"While there, Judge Boasberg attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges by straying from the traditional topics to express his belief that the Trump Administration would 'disregard rulings of federal courts' and trigger 'a constitutional crisis.'"
Days later, Boasberg inserted himself into the deportation case. To critics, the sequence speaks for itself: a judge who publicly predicted the administration would defy the courts then positioned himself to preside over the very dispute that could prove his prediction right. Whether that sequence reflects bias, poor judgment, or something worse is the question Schmitt and his allies want Congress to answer.
The Newsmax report on Schmitt's impeachment call noted that no formal impeachment proceedings had been announced and that removal would face steep hurdles in Congress.
The Missouri senator's demand is the latest in a series of Republican calls for Boasberg's impeachment. President Trump himself posted on Truth Social on March 18, 2025, declaring: "This judge... should be IMPEACHED!!!" Trump had previously described Boasberg as "highly conflicted" and accused the judge of attempting to "usurp" presidential power.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) has also publicly urged the House to begin impeachment proceedings against Boasberg. Hagerty framed the push as a response to what he described as the judge's role in enabling surveillance tied to Trump, his staff, and Republican lawmakers, as Breitbart reported. Sens. Ted Cruz and Eric Schmitt had already joined that call.
Hagerty wrote on X: "We must send a clear message that this type of egregious lawfare can never happen again and those who have facilitated it will face serious consequences."
The growing chorus from the Senate side is notable because senators cannot initiate impeachment. Only the House can draft and vote on articles of impeachment. But the Senate would conduct any trial, and conviction requires a two-thirds majority, a threshold that makes removal unlikely absent a dramatic shift in the political landscape.
The impeachment question now rests with Jordan and House Republican leadership. Jordan has previously said "everything's on the table" when asked about Boasberg.
"We're going to look at everything... all the tools that we have to let some of these judges know that the president and Congress are separate but equal branches of government."
That language stopped short of a commitment. But the appeals court ruling changes the calculus. Before Tuesday, defenders of Boasberg could argue his contempt probe was a legitimate exercise of judicial authority. Now, a panel of his own colleagues on the D.C. Circuit has called it an abuse of discretion and shut it down. That makes the political case for impeachment considerably easier to make, even if the procedural math in the Senate remains daunting.
Any impeachment inquiry would likely be led by the House Judiciary Committee. The process would involve drafting articles of impeachment, committee votes, and a full House floor vote before the matter could move to a Senate trial. With Republicans holding a slim but functional majority in the House, the votes to pass articles are theoretically within reach, though leadership would need near-total party unity.
The broader question is whether House Republicans have the appetite for a fight that could consume floor time and political capital. Congress has impeached only a handful of federal judges in its history. The process is rare, slow, and politically charged. But the argument from Schmitt and his allies is straightforward: if a district judge can launch a contempt investigation that his own appeals court calls an abuse of discretion and a legal dead end, and if that same judge allegedly tried to rally fellow jurists against the sitting administration before inserting himself into the case, then what exactly does it take to trigger the Constitution's remedy?
Federal judges serve lifetime appointments. That independence is a feature, not a bug, but it comes with a constitutional check. Impeachment exists precisely for cases where a judge's conduct falls below the standard the public has a right to expect. The question is whether Boasberg's record meets that bar.
The appeals court's language was unusually blunt. "Clear abuse of discretion." "Improper investigation." "Legal dead end." Those are not the words of a court engaged in a polite disagreement over procedure. They describe a judge who, in the majority's view, went well beyond his authority.
The misconduct complaint filed by Mizelle adds another layer. If the allegations are accurate, Boasberg used a judicial conference to lobby Chief Justice Roberts and other judges against the Trump administration, then took the bench in a case directly involving that administration's deportation policy. The appearance of impartiality, to put it gently, was not preserved.
Congressional accountability mechanisms have been in the spotlight recently. The House Ethics Committee's recent action against a sitting member showed that Congress can still act when the facts demand it. Whether that same willingness extends to the judiciary remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the ongoing battles over DHS funding and border enforcement underscore the stakes. The administration's ability to enforce immigration law, including the deportation of illegal immigrants with violent gang affiliations, should not hinge on the whims of a single district judge whose own appellate court says he went too far.
Several things remain unclear. The specific case caption and docket number for the appeals court ruling have not been widely reported. The outcome of Mizelle's misconduct complaint, whether it was investigated, dismissed, or remains pending, is not established in the available record. And Jordan's office has not signaled whether the Judiciary Committee will take any formal step toward an impeachment inquiry.
What is clear is this: a federal appeals court told a district judge that his contempt probe was an abuse of power. Multiple Republican senators have now called for that judge's impeachment. And the House has the constitutional authority to act.
The Founders gave Congress the impeachment power for a reason. If a judge who launched what his own appeals court called an improper investigation and a clear abuse of discretion doesn't warrant at least a serious inquiry, it's fair to ask whether the tool has any teeth left at all.
