Senator Ted Cruz is calling on Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to start holding rogue judges accountable for their actions, and the first two judges Cruz is calling on to be impeached are James Boasberg of the U.S. Court in the District of Columbia, and Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights, of which Cruz is the Chairman, Cruz laid out his case for impeaching Boasberg and Boardman
During his opening remarks, Cruz said, "Today's hearing is on impeachment, holding rogue judges accountable. The American republic begins with a simple and radical truth. All power originates with the people before there is a congress, before there is a President, before there are courts, there is the sovereign citizen. The founders place that principle on the very first line of our National Charter. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, do ordain and establish this Constitution, they did not say we the judges, we the bureaucrats, we the elites. They said We the People."
Cruz continued, "Judges enjoy good behavior tenure enforced by Congress through impeachment, a judge who ceases to meet the standard of good behavior well ceases to hold office, as Hamilton explained in Federalist 81 impeachment quote is alone, a complete security against the danger of judiciary encroachments and judges' misconstructions of the will of the legislature."
"When Hamilton identifies misconstructions of law as grounds for impeachment, he makes clear that the founders created impeachment to protect the government and the people from the wayward decisions of errant judges," Cruz added.
"That is why, throughout history, Congress recognized that impeachable misconduct need not be criminal," Cruz said before citing examples of judges who were impeached. "In 1803, Judge John Pickering was removed for drunkenness, material mental deterioration and unlawful rulings conduct that rendered him incapable of faithful service. In 1936 judge Halstead Ritter was convicted for behavior that brought his court quote into scandal and disrepute."
Cruz then went on to say the time has come to apply the same standard to two current federal judges, because of that "constitutional injury," and said, "These cases are rare, but today, the same category of constitutional injury is before us again in the matter of two federal judges, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the District Court for the District of Columbia, and judge Deborah L. Boardman of the District Court for the District of Maryland."
Cruz then laid out the case for impeaching Boasberg and Boardman.
For Boardman, there are many examples of "constitutional injury" Cruz could cite, but he focused on Boasberg's role in concealing Arctic Frost, the Biden-era targeting of members of Congress. According to Fox News, Boasberg "[ignored] his responsibility to wield the power of his office in a constitutional manner...granted Special Counsel John L. Smith authorization to issue frivolous nondisclosure orders in furtherance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation project codenamed Arctic Frost," and that "these nondisclosure orders covered Members of Congress who were acting in accord with their legislative duties and privileges guaranteed by Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution."
Judge Boasberg used the authority of his office to authorize and to conceal the targeting of members of Congress.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 7, 2026
No republic can survive if its judges help opposition officials surveil the people's elected representatives.
That's why I'm working to impeach and remove him. pic.twitter.com/S0SWyvH7e0
"Judge Boasberg used the authority of his office to authorize and then to conceal targeting members of Congress," Cruz said. "Spying on the Legislative branch and striking at the very heart of the Constitutional speech and debate clause."
"No republic can survive if its judges help opposition officials surveil the people's elected representatives," Cruz added.
"In his own words, Judge Boasberg claimed that he 'finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in the destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation,'' Cruz continued. "Now about whom is he speaking? Judge Boasberg signed that order concerning nearly 20 percent of the Republicans in the United States Senate. He made a judicial finding that multiple members of this committee will result in the destruction or tampering of evidence. What basis did he have for that? He had no evidence."
"Judge Boasberg approved these subpoenas at the same time the Department of Justice was driving a politically charged prosecution of President Trump," Cruz said.
"Now since then, it has come public that Judge Boasberg claims he did not know who he was authorizing those subpoenas directed to," Cruz said. "That doesn't make it better, it makes it worse. When you have a judge printing out findings that the target of a subpoena will destroy evidence, and he doesn't even know who the hell the target is, churning them out like placemats at a Denny's. That is directly contrary to the judicial oath and to the rule of law.
Cruz also called for the impeachment of Boardman for her sentencing of Nicholas John Roske, who attempted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Prosecutors requested Roske be sentenced to 30 years behind bars. Boardman gave him eight, citing Roske's "trans identity" as a mitigating factor.
Judge Boardman imposed a sentence 22 years below sentencing guidelines on a man who sought to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 7, 2026
Why? Because this man considered himself "transgender."
I'm urging @SpeakerJohnson to advance articles of impeachment against her. pic.twitter.com/e3XRCSTfti
"Judge Deborah Boardman's sentencing decision did not end with one defendant. It reverberated across the entire judiciary," Cruz said. "She imposed a sentence 22 years below the sentencing guidelines on Nicholas Roske, a man who...armed himself with a gun, a knife, duct tape, zip ties, and traveled across the country with the intent to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh and other Supreme Court Justices."
"The Department of Justice correctly recognized this as an act of domestic terrorism and sought a 30-year sentence. Judge Boardman, however, imposed a mere eight-year term, reducing the punishment by more than two decades," Cruz continued. "A sentence so drastically out of step with the gravity of the offense, that it cannot be squared with any plausible understanding of the judicial duty and discretion."
"She did so, in her own explanation, because Mr. Roske considered himself transgender. And because of that, instead of a 30-year sentence, he would be sentenced to eight years, for the crime of attempting to murder at least one Supreme Court Justice," Cruz said.
"If Judge Boardman's sentence maintains, [Roske] will be released and available to threaten judges and law clerks on the Supreme Court and throughout the country," by the time he's 35, Cruz pointed out.
Cruz added, "I've sent a letter to the Speaker of the House, calling on the House to immediately advance the pending articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg and Judge Boardman. Both of these judges I believe meet the standard for impeachment and conviction and removal of office."
During the hearing, Cruz also said his Democratic Senate colleagues wouldn't mention Boardman's name, because her sentencing of Roske is "indefensible."
I predicted that Senate Democrats wouldn’t utter the words “Deborah Boardman” because they can’t defend her indefensible decision to deviate the sentence of a would-be Supreme Court justice assassin downwards by 22 years.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 7, 2026
So far, that prediction is proving correct. pic.twitter.com/vV7NUbXpb1
He was correct.
"Thank you, Ranking Member Durbin. I would note that we've been through 40 percent of the Democrats who we're question and so far my predict that not a one of them would utter the words Debora Boardman because they cannot defend her indefensible decision to deviate downward by 22 years to a would-be assassin of a Supreme Court justice, so fare 40 percent of the way in, that prediction has proved 100 percent correct," Cruz said.
The House can, and should, move forward on these articles of impeachment. Cruz is correct that the impeachment is not about punishing unpopular rulings, but about preventing that "constitutional injury." When judges use and abuse their authority for ideological reasons, Congress has the power and duty to act.
Editor's Note: Unelected federal judges are hijacking President Trump's agenda and insulting the will of the people.
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