DOJ Directs US Attorneys to Submit Adverse Rulings as Judicial Impeachment Fodder; Blanche Calls It 'War' on the Judiciary

The Justice Department directed all US Attorneys’ offices to submit examples of “judicial activism” — in practice, rulings adverse to the administration — to inform potential impeachment referrals to Congress. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly used the word “war” to describe the administration’s posture toward the federal judiciary, and the White House formally endorsed impeachment proceedings against at least six judges who had ruled against it. Bloomberg Law reported the directive; the American Bar Association had already published on threats to judicial independence earlier in 2026.

The mechanism is what distinguishes this from ordinary political criticism of courts. DOJ appears before these judges as a litigant; asking its own line prosecutors to catalog the rulings they lost, and routing that catalog toward impeachment referrals, converts the department’s litigation posture into a threat channel against the adjudicators. A prosecutor who must appear before a judge tomorrow is being asked to report that judge today. The corpus already documents the surrounding structure: Raskin’s letter to Blanche on systematic DOJ court defiance (2026-07-14–raskin-letter-blanche-doj-systematic-court-defiance), ProPublica’s reporting that federal judges are withdrawing the presumption of regularity from DOJ filings (2026-07-28–propublica-federal-judges-chastise-doj-presumption-regularity-eroding), the Senate Judiciary Committee advancing Blanche’s AG nomination alongside that catalog of irregularity (2026-08-04–senate-judiciary-advances-blanche-ag-nomination-doj-regularity-catalog), and Judge McConnell disclosing death threats after Loomer doxxed his daughter (2026-08-05–judge-mcconnell-discloses-death-threats-loomer-doxxes-daughter). The historical rhyme is FDR’s court-packing plan (1937-02-05–fdr-court-packing-plan-executive-vs-judiciary), with one difference: FDR proposed restructuring the court through legislation in public, while this operates through the enforcement agency’s internal reporting lines.