The most promising way to get rid of the rogue, activist federal judges currently overstepping their authority to block President Donald Trump from performing his legitimate duties isn’t impeachment, constitutional scholar, conservative commentator and Author Mark Levin said Sunday.
On the latest episode of “Life, Liberty and Levin,” Levin used the example of how outgoing President John Adams used the Judiciary Act of 1801 to quickly install 16 new judges he favored just before leaving office – and how incoming President Thomas Jefferson dealt with Adams’ ploy.
In the elections of 1800, Adams’ Federalist Party lost the presidency, House and Senate, so Adams used the new Judiciary Act to create and fill judgeships, Levin explained:
“President John Adams signed the bill on February 13, 1801, just three weeks before the end of his term of office. He lost. He was a Federalist. The Federalists lost the House of Representatives. The Federalists lost the Senate. So, the Republicans, that is Jefferson’s party, took all of the elected branches. All of them.
“He also sent to the Federalist-controlled Senate, that is Adams, his own Senate, nominees for the 16 new judgeships. So, he’s lost the election, so the Federalists, his party, they create these 16 new federal judgeships. He wants to rush them through. He wants to get them populated as fast as he can. And they were confirmed shortly before the end of the Adams administration.
“Now, these judges came to be called “Adams’ Midnight Judges” – some of whom were the subject of the case called Marbury versus Madison. That’s the crucial case, Marbury versus Madison.”
Immediately after entering the White House, Jefferson used the new Congress to abolish Adams’ 16 new judgeships, Levin explained:
“On March 8, 1802 - just days after Thomas Jefferson's followers, the Republicans, took control both houses of Congress - Congress repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801 On April 29, 1802, Congress enacted the Judiciary Act of 1802 which among other things, abolished the 16 new judgeships created by Adams and the Federalists.”
Thus, Levin noted, impeachment isn’t the only way to remove rogue judges from office – but, it is the least plausible:
“By the way, this has been my point: impeachment will not remove these judges, because you are not going to get a super majority, 67 senators, to remove them.
“You say we should go through the process, anyway. I do not believe in banging heads against walls.
“You can remove the judges, just like Jefferson did.
“You can defund the judges.
“And, as I’ve visited written in my book, ‘Men in Black,’ you can take jurisdiction away from them.”
“The best thing to do is to point out some of the most rogue, reckless of the judges, like Boasberg, and abolish those positions,” Levin concluded.
Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is the latest of a number of rogue, activist judges that House Republicans are working to impeach. Boasberg recently ruled that the Trump Administration did not have the authority to deport more than two hundred illegal alien gang members and ordered the planes carrying the gang members to turn around and bring them back to the U.S.
The planes, which were already over international air space, did not do so, sparking outrage from Boasberg and Congressional Democrats.