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Judge Boardman may not be interested in deterring the next Nicholas Roske, but Congress has the power to deter the next Boardman.
Last Friday, Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland shocked anyone with a conscience by imposing a comically light sentence on the young man, Nicholas Roske, who tried to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the spring of 2022, while also planning to kill two more of Kavanaugh’s conservative colleagues.
In doing so, she functionally condoned political violence — as long as it’s from the left — and based her decision, in large part, on her sympathy for the purported transgender status of the would-be assassin. In a year of preposterous district court decisions, this one takes the cake: Boardman gave a slap on the wrist to someone who planned and attempted the worst sort of political terrorism, it seems, because of her ideological sympathies. The decision is so potentially corrosive to our civic peace that Congress would be right to consider impeachment proceedings against Boardman.
As federal district judges have found increasingly novel and extreme ways to foil the Trump administration’s agenda, calls on the right for judicial impeachment have grown. Indeed, actual articles of impeachment have been introduced. This past spring, the chief justice himself denounced the movement. That he did so was imprudent — it’s not for judges to decide how Congress wields the impeachment power — but his basic argument was probably right. Going back to the start of the republic, there has been a general agreement that mere political disagreement is not enough to warrant impeaching a judge.
What Boardman did in the Roske sentencing is different in kind from simply bending the law to rule against a disfavored party; she seems to have openly excused political violence on ideological grounds. She did this both in her substantive sentencing decisions and in her given justifications at sentencing.
First, a reminder of what Roske did. As we now know from the sentencing recommendation, Roske was incensed by the leaked Dobbs decision while living in California. He mused openly, “Im gonna stop roe v wade from being overturned,” continuing, “I could get a least one, which would change the votes for decades to come, and I am shooting for 3.” He then researched how to carry out an assassination, proceeded to supply himself for the enterprise — he bought a gun, a knife, zip ties, burglary tools, and quiet shoes — and flew to Washington, D.C., to carry it out. He went to Justice Kavanaugh’s house intending to kill him, but saw marshals on duty. After some time casing the house without incident, Roske seems to have gotten cold feet and turned himself in.
This is terrorism, pure and simple. Roske intended to engage in deadly violence against public figures (Supreme Court justices) to change a public policy outcome (maintaining Roe v. Wade’s regime of abortion on demand). That he didn’t succeed is fortunate and beside the point: As Kavanaugh performs his judicial duties, he now has to worry about the real possibility of a left-wing lunatic coming to kill him or his family. The same goes for his colleagues, two of whom, again, were also in Roske’s crosshairs.
Boardman, it seems, didn’t much care about any of this. The crimes with which Roske was charged carried a potential life sentence. The government asked for 30 years. Boardman, agreeing with Roske’s attorney, gave him only eight. We know this was ideological because Boardman seemed more sympathetic to Roske than to the Kavanaughs. Of them, Boardman concluded, “Though [Roske] got far too close to executing her [sic] plans, the fact of the matter is she [sic] abandoned them.” Roske, in Boardman’s telling, is a “she” because, on the eve of sentencing, Roske’s attorney announced he was actually transgender. --->READ MORE HERE
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Monday called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, who sentenced the man who planned to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to just eight years and one month in prison.
Boardman handed down the 97-month sentence to Nicholas Roske, who now identifies as a transgender woman named Sophie, on Friday — far below the 30-year term sought by federal prosecutors. Roske was arrested outside Kavanaugh’s home in June 2022 with a pistol, ammunition, zip ties, and burglary tools, telling police he intended to kill at least one conservative justice to prevent the Supreme Court from overturning Roe v. Wade.
Cruz accused Boardman of allowing political ideology to override sentencing guidelines.
“This judge has demonstrated she is utterly unfit to be a federal judge,” Cruz said Monday on Verdict with Ted Cruz. “The House of Representatives should seriously contemplate impeaching this judge.”
“If you are such a zealot, such a partisan ideologue, that you will not follow the sentencing guidelines … and instead you say, ‘You know what? This person’s transgender, and my ideology is such that I love transgenders.’ … That’s appalling,” Cruz said. “I would love to have a trial in the Senate.”
Boardman has also blocked several of Trump’s policies since his return to the Oval Office, including his bid to end birthright citizenship, and rulings against the Department of Government Efficiency accessing executive branch agency information.
The sentencing has sparked outrage among conservatives, with critics accusing Boardman of treating gender identity as a mitigating factor. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Department of Justice will appeal the sentence, calling it “woefully insufficient.”
Carrie Severino, president of the conservative judicial advocacy group JCN, said the judge improperly introduced Roske’s gender dysphoria as a factor in her decision. --->READ MORE HEREFollow link below to a relevant story:
+++++DOJ to Appeal Kavanaugh’s Would-Be Trans Assassin’s Sentence: ‘Woefully Inadequate’+++++
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