Congressman Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ) is moving to impeach a federal judge who ruled against the Trump administration's effort to verify voter citizenship, filing articles of impeachment to remove her from the bench.
The target of Hamadeh's action is U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee who recently blocked the Trump administration from maintaining a centralized database containing Social Security numbers and citizenship data intended to verify voter eligibility.
In her 75-page ruling, The Hill reported that Sooknanan found that federal officials had combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans using citizenship data she described as unreliable, and that states had already begun using the database to incorrectly remove actual U.S. citizens from voter rolls.
The database was created in response to a March executive order from President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to establish a list of eligible voters based on citizenship data and requiring the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to individuals on each state's approved voter roll.
Additionally, the Social Security Administration was specifically directed to build what the order called a "State Citizenship List" drawing from its own records, naturalization data, and a Department of Homeland Security database used to determine eligibility for federal programs.
Hamadeh's Argument
Sooknanan's ruling halted that effort, concluding that officials had acted unlawfully.
However, Hamadeh disagrees with that conclusion and argues the ruling itself overstepped judicial authority.
"Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan's egregious overreaching ruling blocking President Trump's common-sense effort to verify the citizenship of those who want to vote in our elections was the final straw," he said in a statement. "It was a blatant and unlawful subversion of the President's executive authority and a direct assault on election integrity. Judges who weaponize their bench to interfere with the President's constitutional duties must be held accountable."
Impeachment of a federal judge is an extraordinarily rare step that would require a majority vote in the House followed by a trial in the Senate.
