Here are the eight federal judges removed from office by Congress

WASHINGTON (CN) — As he unveiled impeachment articles against D.C. District Judge James Boasberg on Tuesday, Texas Representative Brandon Gill invoked constitutional language which has become axiomatic among lawmakers looking to unseat jurists who have ruled against President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“He is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and should be removed from office,” Gill wrote in a post on X.

And Boasberg, the Texas Republican argued in his impeachment articles against the jurist, committed high crimes and misdemeanors by using his position to “advance political gain while interfering with the President’s constitutional prerogatives and the enforcement of the rule of law.”

Boasberg, who over the weekend blocked the Trump administration from carrying out the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, isn’t the first federal judge to face impeachment threats after issuing holds on the White House’s sweeping executive orders.

Republican lawmakers in recent weeks have begun efforts to remove several jurists who blocked Trump’s moves to roll back birthright citizenship and freeze foreign aid — all thumping “high crimes and misdemeanors” as justification for their proposed impeachments.

The Trump administration and its allies have used this revolt against federal judges to cast aspersions on rulings against the White House.

“There are nearly 700 unelected district court judges,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Tuesday. “If the most extremist of these judges on any given day decided he is in charge of the executive branch, then Article II, democracy and government itself cannot function.”

Elon Musk, a close advisor of the president whose Department of Government Efficiency organization has been at the center of several court orders, has repeatedly taken to social media calling for judicial impeachments.

“This is a judicial coup,” he wrote on X Wednesday morning, incorrectly asserting that “60 senators” should impeach judges and “restore rule of the people.” The House is responsible for impeaching judges, and the current breakdown of the Senate would require a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, to convict any accused jurist.

But have these federal judges committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” which warrant their ouster?

The phrase originates from the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the authority to impeach and remove the president, judges or other federal officials whose conduct falls under “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The House approves articles of impeachment, and the Senate tries and convicts the accused officials.

Throughout U.S. history, though, lawmakers have impeached only a handful of federal judges — just 15 — using this constitutional power, and even fewer have been removed from office by the Senate.

And almost none of the jurists who have been convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors were ousted for the rulings they handed down — thanks in part to longstanding precedent set by the high-profile acquittal of a Supreme Court justice.

Here are the eight federal judges who Congress has successfully removed from office:

Judge John Pickering

John Pickering was among the first slate of federal judges appointed by President George Washington, who nominated him in 1795 to serve on the District of New Hampshire. But by the early 1800s, Pickering’s mental state was in decline, and eventually his caseload had to be handled by a replacement jurist.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent evidence to Congress which accused Pickering of making unlawful rulings and suggested that he was intoxicated while on the bench. The House responded later that year by impeaching the judge on charges of public drunkenness and making illegal rulings.

That move, however, proved controversial, as lawmakers from the Federalist party accused their Democratic-Republican colleagues of attempting an end-run around constitutionally prescribed high crimes and misdemeanors. Despite that, Pickering was convicted by the Senate on a 19-7 vote and removed from office.

Judge West Humphries

West Humphries, nominated to the bench in 1853 by President Franklin Pierce, oversaw a joint jurisdiction which included the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts of Tennessee. But at the outbreak of the Civil War, Humphries joined the Confederacy, becoming a judge in the Confederate judicial system.

Congress elected to impeach Humphries from his position as a U.S. federal judge in 1862 on charges of publicly calling for secession and giving aid to an armed rebellion, among other things. The Senate convicted him and banned him from federal service for life — though he remained a private practice lawyer in Tennessee until his death in 1882.

Judge Robert Archbald

Robert Archbald was nominated by President William Howard Taft in 1910 to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Commerce Court.

The jurist later became embroiled in a criminal investigation after accusations emerged that he had bought land from railroads and real estate brokers who were also litigants before his court. Archbald also faced claims that he had taken a trip to Europe bankrolled by those same benefactors.

The federal judge was impeached in 1913 on 13 counts, including accepting wrongful gifts and communications. The Senate, however, convicted him on just five of those counts — though a successful two-thirds majority on a single article was enough to remove Archbald from his post.

Judge Halsted Ritter

Halsted Ritter, appointed in 1929 to the Southern District of Florida by President Calvin Coolidge, was impeached in 1936 on seven counts stemming from accusations of embezzlement. Among the charges, lawmakers accused the jurist of accepting a $4,500 payment from a former law partner and of evading taxes.

Though the House advanced his articles of impeachment, the Senate only convicted Ritter on a single count, finding him guilty of bringing the federal judiciary “into disrepute.” The ousted judge challenged his conviction before the U.S. Court of Claims, but it dismissed his appeal, holding that the Senate is the only body with constitutional authority to try impeachment cases.

Judge Harry Claiborne

Harry Claiborne, a former judge on the District of Nevada, was appointed in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter. In 1983, though, he was indicted by a grand jury for bribery, fraud and tax evasion. A deadlocked jury and a mistrial stalled things, but in 1984 he was found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to two years in prison. He was the first federal judge in U.S. history to be convicted of crimes while on the bench.

Claiborne was unanimously impeached by the House in 1986, while he was still in prison, becoming one of only three federal judges to be impeached on a unanimous vote. The disgraced jurist was convicted by the Senate on four counts.

Judge Alcee Hastings

Alcee Hastings, another Carter judge, was nominated to the Southern District of Florida in 1979. He was charged in 1981 with accepting a $150,000 bribe in exchange for handing down a lighter sentence in a racketeering case he oversaw. Hastings, though, was acquitted by a jury, prompting congressional impeachment inquiry in 1987.

Hastings, accused of bribery and perjury, was convicted by the Senate in 1989 and removed from office. But the former judge would later salvage his career in Congress, where he represented Florida’s 20th and 23rd Congressional Districts from 1992 until his death in 2021.

Judge Walter Nixon

Walter Nixon, nominated in 1968 by President Lyndon Johnson, served on the Southern District of Mississippi. The jurist was convicted in 1986 on perjury charges stemming from a state drug prosecution.

Nixon was accused of convincing a state prosecutor to drop the case, which involved the son of one of the jurist’s business partners. He later denied any involvement to the FBI, conduct which led to his impeachment in Congress.

House lawmakers unanimously agreed to the three impeachment counts against Nixon, and the Senate convicted him on two. But the ousted jurist appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, which in 1993 rejected the case — concluding that it constituted a political question outside the high court’s legal authority.

Judge Thomas Porteous

Thomas Porteous, the most recent federal judge to be removed by Congress, served on the Eastern District of Louisiana, a position to which he was nominated in 1994 by President Bill Clinton.

Porteous was unanimously impeached by the House in 2010 after the U.S. Judicial Conference accused him of falsifying financial disclosure forms and soliciting cash and other gifts from lawyers who appeared before him. The Senate convicted Porteous on all four counts.

The former judge later had his law license revoked.

Justice Samuel Chase

Perhaps one of the most impactful judicial impeachments, however, came in the case of a 19th century jurist who was ultimately acquitted by Congress.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase — the only high court jurist to ever face impeachment — was accused in 1804 of exhibiting political bias in circuit court cases over which he presided. At the time, justices were required to serve on lower circuit courts in addition to their work on the Supreme Court.

But the Senate refused to convict Chase, with some lawmakers arguing that the justice was facing impeachment for political reasons and not because he committed high crimes and misdemeanors. He was acquitted for all charges in 1805.

Legal scholars have pointed to Chase’s impeachment as the beginning of a longstanding precedent about the independence of the federal judiciary.

In a 2004 article published in the University of Richmond Law review, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that the significance of the Chase trial “cannot be overstated.”

“Chase’s narrow escape from conviction in the Senate exemplified how close the development of an independent judiciary came to be stultified,” he wrote.

Though lawmakers backing the justice’s removal provided “grandiose theories” about using impeachment as a tool to bring the judiciary “into line” with the political views of the time, Rehnquist pointed out that Chase was instead tried on specific accusations of judicial misconduct.

And Chase’s acquittal, the former chief justice contended, represented an understanding by Congress that impeachment should not be used to remove a judge for conduct that is part of their “judicial duties.”

“The political precedent set by Chase’s acquittal has governed that day to this,” wrote Rehnquist. “A judge’s judicial acts may not serve as a basis for impeachment.”

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