Ted Cruz demands impeachment of judge who sentenced Kavanaugh’s attempted assassin

Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, called on Congress in a Senate hearing Wednesday to impeach two federal judges, making his most elaborate argument yet for imposing the extraordinary punishment on two closely watched jurists.

Cruz acknowledged that the impeachment of federal judges is extremely rare — 15 have been impeached in history, usually for simple crimes like corruption — but the Texas Republican argued it was justified for Justices James Boasberg and Deborah Boardman.

“Until now, the most serious offenses have been even rarer: judges who, without necessarily breaking a criminal law, violate the public trust, subvert the constitutional order or exercise their functions in a way that harms society itself,” Cruz said. “That is why, throughout history, Congress has recognized that attributable misconduct is not necessarily criminal.”

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U.S. Senator Ted Cruz speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 30, 2025. (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)

Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee with extensive legal experience, said the House should begin impeachment proceedings over the controversial gag orders signed by Boasberg in 2023 and a sentence issued by Boardman last year in the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Impeachment proceedings must be initiated in the House and usually conducted by the House Judiciary Committee.

Russell Dye, a spokesman for the GOP-led committee, said “everything is on the table” when asked if Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, was open to the idea. If the House votes in favor of impeachment, it would then move to the Senate. It would require two-thirds of senators to vote to convict the judges and remove them from office, a highly unlikely scenario because the vote would require some support from Democrats.

Cruz’s counterpart at the hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., defended the judges and accused Republicans of threatening impeachment in an effort to intimidate the judiciary as it routinely issues rulings unfavorable to the Trump administration.

“There was a time when I would have hoped that a Senate Judiciary subcommittee would not be involved in a scheme to amplify pressure and threats against a sitting federal judge,” Whitehouse said. “But here we are.”

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is seen at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, DC (Getty Images)

In the case of Boardman, a Biden appointee, the judge sentenced Sophie Roske, formerly Nicholas Roske, to eight years in prison after the Justice Department requested a 30-year sentence. Roske pleaded guilty to attempted murder of Kavanaugh. Boardman said she factored into her sentence the fact that Roske identified as transgender and therefore faced unique adversity.

Cruz argued that Democrats’ concerns about threats the justices faced for ruling against President Donald Trump fell on deaf ears, he said, because they didn’t talk about Boardman’s leniency toward Roske.

“My Democratic colleagues on this committee don’t have the opportunity to make big speeches about their opposition to violence against the judiciary and, at the same time, cheer on a judge by saying, ‘Well, if you try to assassinate a Supreme Court justice and you’re transgender, that’s no problem. We’re going to drift down more than two decades,'” Cruz said.

In Boasberg’s case, former special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed phone records of several Republican members of Congress while he was conducting an investigation into the 2020 election and Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Smith requested hush orders so that senators would not immediately be informed of the subpoenas, and Boasberg authorized the orders.

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Justice Deborah Boardman addressing Congress (Fox News)

It is not uncommon for prosecutors to seek silence orders, but senators enjoy several layers of protection from prosecution under the Constitution. The targeted Republicans denounced the subpoenas, saying their rights had been violated.

Both Smith and a federal courts official said Boasberg was not informed that the subpoenas and silence orders involved members of Congress.

Rob Luther, a law professor at George Mason University, witnessed Republicans at the hearing and said Boasberg still should not have signed the hush orders without knowing who they were for. Luther cited the stipulations included in the ordinances.

“One must ask on what basis Judge Boasberg found that disclosure of the subpoenas would result in the destruction or tampering of evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses and seriously endanger the investigation, end quote,” Luther said. “Did Judge Boasberg simply approve the requested silence order, or was he willfully blind?”

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Smith’s actions also aligned with a DOJ policy at the time that did not require the special counsel to alert the court that the subpoenas targeted senators, a point raised by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., during the hearing. Luther said politics didn’t matter.

“DOJ policy does not supersede federal law,” he said.