WASHINGTON >> Just hours after President Donald Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who sought to pause the removal of more than 200 migrants to El Salvador, Chief Justice John Roberts today issued a rare public statement.

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

Trump had called the judge, James E. Boasberg, a “Radical Left Lunatic” in a social media post and said he should be impeached.

The exchange was reminiscent of one in 2018, when Roberts defended the independence and integrity of the federal judiciary after Trump called a judge who had ruled against his administration’s asylum policy “an Obama judge.”

The chief justice said that was a profound misunderstanding of the judicial role.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in a statement then. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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