WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump’s rumbling conflict with the judiciary burst into open confrontation on Tuesday as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare public rebuke of the US leader over his call for the impeachment of a federal judge.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a brief statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Roberts’s extraordinary rebuke of the president came after Trump called for the impeachment of District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the suspension over the weekend of deportation flights of alleged illegal migrants.

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

The White House has been sharply critical of district courts which have blocked some of the president’s executive actions but this was the first time Trump has personally called for a judge’s impeachment since he took office in January.

Federal judges are nominated by the president for life and can only be removed by being impeached by the House of Representatives for “high crimes or misdemeanors” and convicted by the Senate.

Impeachment of federal judges is exceedingly rare and the last time a judge was removed by Congress was in 2010.

Several hours after Trump’s post, Brandon Gill, a Republican lawmaker from Texas, announced on X that he had introduced articles of impeachment in the House against Boasberg, whom he described as a “radical activist judge.”

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, described Roberts’s intervention as “extremely rare” and recalled that the chief justice made similar remarks after Trump criticized the rulings of federal judges during his first term.