Impeach Judge Boardman

Judge Deborah Boardman’s lenient sentencing of Nicholas Roske—the man who plotted to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh—represents not merely poor judgment but a fundamental breach of judicial responsibility. She should be impeached.

I don’t say this lightly—and I’ve never before called for the impeachment of a federal judge. This constitutional mechanism exists to preserve the rule of law from genuine abuses of power, not to punish decisions we disagree with. But when a judge’s conduct reveals a disregard for her constitutional duty—and actively endangers the federal judiciary individually and collectively—we must consider the remedy the Framers provided.

Roske wasn’t a confused protester or an online provocateur. He traveled cross-country with a gun and burglary tools, arriving at Justice Kavanaugh’s home in the middle of the night on June 8, 2022, prepared to kill him. He confessed that he acted out of anger over the Court’s likely reversal of Roe v. Wade. Were it not for his last-minute hesitation, the United States would have faced its first targeted killing of a Supreme Court justice.

Yet Judge Boardman imposed an eight-year sentence, far below federal guidelines and lenient even by the standards of some nonviolent offenses. Such a response to a premeditated assassination attempt on a sitting justice cannot be squared with the seriousness of the crime or the need to deter political violence.