Courts Must ‘Check the Excesses’ of Congress and the President, Roberts Says

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. defended the independence of the judiciary and denounced any attempt to impeach judges over disagreements with their rulings during rare public remarks on Wednesday evening.

“Impeachment is not how you register disagreement with a decision,” the chief justice told a crowd of about 600 people, mainly lawyers and judges, gathered in Buffalo, his hometown.

The remarks were his first since issuing a similar, though also unusual, written statement in March in response to threats by President Trump and his allies to impeach federal judges who have issued decisions against administration policies.

The chief justice did not mention the president directly in his comments on Wednesday, and he did not elaborate further in his answer about threats of impeachment, which he gave in response to a direct question during an event to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

But the commentary was nevertheless notable given that justices typically avoid weighing in on political matters. His comments came less than a week after another justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, denounced attacks on the judiciary during remarks at a conference for judges held in Puerto Rico.

Justice Jackson criticized what she called “relentless attacks” on judges, as well as an environment of harassment that “ultimately risks undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”