Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen has taken direct aim at the top of the federal judiciary, filing six articles of impeachment against Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and accusing him of turning the Supreme Court into a partisan player while shielding former President Donald Trump from criminal liability.
Cohen announced the filing in Memphis on May 21, 2026, describing the move as an effort to restore the court’s credibility and public trust. It is a rare swing at the chief justice’s job security and a formal invitation for Congress to put the Supreme Court’s internal ethical battles on the public record.
According to LocalMemphis, the six articles allege that Roberts allowed the court to become a partisan force, endorsed a corrupt campaign finance system, exempted Trump from criminal liability, failed to report assets and refused to recuse from cases where conflicts were alleged. Cohen framed the filings as ethical and constitutional complaints rather than just another volley in Washington’s daily political crossfire. The documents mark the opening move in a process governed by House and Senate rules.
What Cohen alleges
“The Supreme Court was once a proud and credible institution,” Cohen said in his Memphis statement, as reported by LocalMemphis. He said the impeachment articles are aimed squarely at what he views as systematic ethical failures at the court.
Cohen’s counts focus on Roberts’ handling of recusal, disclosure of assets and major decisions that Cohen argues helped insulate the presidency from criminal accountability. If House leaders choose to advance the filings, they would trigger committee review, fact finding and, potentially, hearings that drag internal Supreme Court practices into full public view.
A rare step with steep legal hurdles
Impeaching a Supreme Court justice is almost unheard of. Only one justice - Associate Justice Samuel Chase - was impeached by the House in 1804, and the Senate later acquitted him. The bar for removal remains extremely high.
The impeachment mechanism is both political and legal. The House brings articles of impeachment, the Senate holds the trial and removal from office requires a two thirds vote of senators present, according to Britannica. In practice, that math has kept Supreme Court impeachments more in the realm of political theater than completed convictions.
Political realities in Congress
Cohen’s filing now runs headlong into the cold arithmetic of Capitol Hill. The 119th Congress is narrowly divided, and party margins heavily influence which measures leadership chooses to advance and which get parked in committee, according to the Library of Congress profile of the 119th Congress. That balance will decide whether the articles receive hearings, a floor vote or mainly serve as a high profile warning shot.
What comes next
Under standard procedure, articles of impeachment are referred to the House Judiciary Committee for investigation and hearings, followed by a possible committee vote before the full House considers impeachment. Whether Cohen’s filing gets that far is now a question of political will.
The Supreme Court rarely steps into direct political fights, and Roberts himself has previously warned that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” a point he made publicly in 2025. For the moment, Cohen’s move functions as a pointed demand for accountability and a test of how aggressively Congress wants to police the judiciary.
Why Memphis matters
The drama is national, but the launchpad is local. Cohen represents Tennessee’s 9th District and has a record of pushing oversight and accountability measures, according to his congressional site. His constituents now find themselves at the center of a fight over court ethics and the role of the judiciary in American governance.
Whether the filing evolves into a full scale congressional inquiry or remains a sharply worded marker from a senior House Democrat will depend on committee decisions, floor vote calculations and how other members react. For now, the articles are public, the stakes for the Supreme Court’s reputation are clear and both Memphis and Washington will be watching to see who blinks first.
