Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) has filed six articles of impeachment against Chief Justice John Roberts, taking direct aim at the leader of a Supreme Court that has spent the past two years expanding presidential power and fending off questions about its own ethics. The resolution, formally introduced in the House, accuses Roberts of failing to hold the high court to any enforceable standard of conduct while it reshapes American law in ways critics say shield the powerful.
At the center of Cohen’s resolution is the Court’s landmark decision in Trump v. United States, which granted presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for so-called official acts. Cohen argues that ruling, combined with a string of unresolved ethics and recusal controversies, has eroded public confidence in the judiciary and demands accountability at the very top.
What the resolution actually does
It is important to be clear about the scope of this filing. This is a symbolic resolution. It currently has no co-sponsors, and it has no realistic chance of advancing in a Republican-controlled House that controls the floor schedule and committee process. It will not remove the Chief Justice, and no serious observer expects it to reach a vote.
Impeachment of a sitting Supreme Court justice is extraordinarily rare. Only one justice in American history, Samuel Chase in 1804, was ever impeached by the House, and he was acquitted by the Senate. Removing a justice requires a majority in the House to impeach and a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate to convict, a threshold that is not remotely in reach today.
Why Cohen says he filed it
Cohen, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, has framed the articles as a matter of putting accountability on the record. In his telling, the immunity ruling rewrote the relationship between a president and the law, and the Court has refused to adopt a binding code of ethics even as reporting has raised questions about undisclosed gifts, travel, and recusal decisions involving several justices.
The Supreme Court adopted a code of conduct in late 2023, but that code contains no enforcement mechanism, leaving compliance entirely to the discretion of the individual justices. Cohen and other reform advocates argue that a court without any external check on its ethics is, by design, accountable to no one.
The bigger fight over the Court
The filing lands amid a broader push by Democrats and good-government groups for Supreme Court accountability, including proposals for term limits, an enforceable ethics code, and clearer recusal rules. Republicans and the Court’s defenders counter that such measures are political attacks designed to delegitimize an institution whose rulings they dislike.
For years, the Supreme Court has essentially asked the public to take its impartiality on faith. Resolutions like Cohen’s are a reminder that ‘trust us’ is not the same thing as accountability, and that an institution wielding the final word on the nation’s laws is increasingly being asked to show its work.
Whether or not these six articles ever move, they mark another data point in a deepening confrontation over the legitimacy, ethics, and power of the modern Supreme Court, a debate that is unlikely to fade before the next election.