Merely a few days ago, Trump called criticism of judges “totally illegal” in a speech before a hand-picked group of loyalists at the Department of Justice. But that was a few days ago. This was yesterday.

If you fail to see any issues with this twit, stop reading. You don’t belong here. While Musk has repeatedly called for the impeachment of judges whose decisions he disagrees with, he’s not really the president, no matter what he believes his role to be. But this time, Trump called for the impeachment of Chief Judge James Boasberg, and Trump, for better or worse, is the president.

In response, Chief Justice John Roberts did something quite rare and extraordinary by issuing a statement.

For more than two centuries, 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.

In an interview with Laura Ingraham afterward, Trump initially noted that the Chief Justice’s statement didn’t name him, somehow suggesting this was about someone else, and then went on in a rant even less coherent than his twit about how “local judges” who are “radical left lunatics” should be impeached.

Was CJ Roberts wrong to issue a statement condemning Trump’s calls for impeachment? Matt Vespa at Townhall thinks so.

President Donald J. Trump was right to go scorched Earth on little District Judge James Boasberg, who is violating the separation of powers by enjoining the executive in some legal gobbledygook about the president not being able to deport foreign terrorists. Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration couldn’t invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to accelerate the deportation of Venezuelan gang members—Tren de Aragua—who has been designated a terror group. The judge even ordered deportation flights to return to the United States; they didn’t, as the planes were over international waters.

The media is framing this as a constitutional crisis since Trump ignored the ruling. His communications team isn’t framing it that way, but I couldn’t care less if they did. It should be ignored. Boasberg lacks the authority to dictate what is already explicitly outlined under Article II.

And it would appear, indeed, that the order was ignored, if not deliberately violated. Conflating the separate questions of whether the president has the power to ignore the law and deny the dearly deported due process (are they members of TdA? Trump says so, but thus far there has been no evidence that any of the deported are members of any gang) with the question of whether the president gets to ignore the orders of “local” federal judges is another matter.

The administration may well win before the justices on the underlying issues in the case, which involve difficult constitutional questions about presidential power over national security and immigration. But those issues are separate from the current one: Must the president obey court orders he contends are wrong while he appeals them?

Even Andy McCarthy, no shitlib he, recognizes that the refusal to abide court orders crosses a line.

“It should go without saying that, at the Justice Department, the rule of the road is that, in the absence of a true emergency, the government complies with judicial orders, even if the orders are patently lawless, until it can get them reversed — either by the issuing judge or a higher court,” Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, wrote in the right-leaning National Review. “It’s all right to complain bitterly about court orders, but they are not to be ignored, much less knowingly flouted.”

The administration has chosen a different path, Mr. McCarthy argued. “The government seems to be intentionally instigating fireworks,” he wrote. “That seems like a terrible legal strategy, but it may be winning politics … at least for a little while,” he added, using ellipses for emphasis.

Calling for impeachment raises the pretense of abiding by law, since impeachment is the legal mechanism by which Article III judges are removed from office, though it does so not because there is any chance of impeachment. Even granting that impeachment is a political rather than legal act, “high crimes and misdemeanors” notwithstanding, threatening impeachment as the consequence of ruling against Trump renders the exercise absurd. You don’t impeach because you don’t like a decision. You appeal.

It was a bold move for Chief Justice Roberts to issue a statement in the face of an administration that cares little about the other branches of government, except to the extent it facilitates Trump’s whims. Then again, the statement wasn’t quite the rebuke one might expect in the face of a president publicly calling for the impeachment of a judge because he doesn’t like his ruling. Trump was right that Roberts didn’t use his name, and perhaps this was the moment when the chief justice, whose function includes the defense of the institution, should have drawn a line in the sand.

Trump, in his incoherent way, tries to play both sides of the fence in order to pretend his rule by Executive Order, with the sycophantic acquiescence of Congress and rejection of judiciary’s authority to review, is lawful by invoking legal remedies like impeachment. After all, Trump didn’t openly say he was flouting the law, as his minion Tom Homan did, or send Seal Team 6 to take out Judge Boasberg (or Chief Justice Roberts, as the case might be).

Andy McCarthy seems to think that the MAGA faithful will eventually catch on to Trump’s lawlessness and his incoherent hyperbole, reaching the point where the political enthusiasm  gives way to fear of what Trump will do and who he will do it to. I’m less sanguine that Andy’s “at least for a little while” will play out as he expects. Trump was bizarrely wrong to assert that criticism of judges should be illegal. Trump was far more wrong to call for the impeachment of a judge because he ruled against him. And Chief Justice Roberts’ rebuke changed nothing.