Progressive activist Scott Dworkin is calling on Congress to impeach Chief Justice John Roberts, asserting that Roberts “gave the president immunity” and that only Congress can remove him from the bench. The message, posted to Dworkin’s X account @funder, has been amplified by supporters urging voters to cast early ballots and then pressure lawmakers to act.
In a post published on the evening of October twentieth, Dworkin wrote: “Your ballot can fire a senator. It can’t touch John Roberts, the man who gave presidents immunity. Only Congress can impeach him. Vote early, then tell them to: #ElectionHeroesVoteEarly.” The post frames the ballot as a tool for removing senators but casts impeachment as the only mechanism for addressing the chief justice.
Hours later, shortly after midnight, Dworkin followed with a second post that was more direct. “John Roberts gave the president immunity,” he wrote. “Nobody gave John Roberts immunity. Congress can impeach a chief justice. Pass it on.”
The posts do not specify which ruling or immunity determination Dworkin is referencing, and the claim that Roberts “gave the president immunity” is presented without citation in the text of the messages. The assertion has circulated among accounts that have picked up the call and repeated it to their own audiences.
Dworkin, who has one million followers on X, is a longtime Democratic strategist and founder of the Democratic Coalition, an anti-Trump advocacy group. His posts frequently target Republican officials and conservative judicial appointees, and the impeachment call fits that pattern. The two messages together lay out a sequence: first the framing of the ballot as insufficient to reach Roberts, then the direct call to “pass it on” as an instruction to spread the demand.
The call to impeach a sitting chief justice is a significant escalation in rhetoric, though it is not a new idea in progressive circles. Impeachment of federal judges requires a majority vote in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict and remove. No chief justice has ever been removed from office through impeachment, and the bar for doing so is high.
The posts come amid broader activism around early voting, with Dworkin’s first message attaching the hashtag #ElectionHeroesVoteEarly and directing followers to vote before pressing Congress. That combination — electoral participation paired with a demand for impeachment — is the core of the message being carried by the accounts amplifying it.
The hashtag and the impeachment demand have circulated together, with Dworkin’s followers repeating the call and urging others to contact their representatives. The posts do not name specific members of Congress or outline a legislative strategy beyond the general demand that lawmakers act.
Coverage of related themes has appeared elsewhere. The Daily Independent published an opinion piece asking whether former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Chief Justice Roberts are “king-makers,” using the metaphor of a three-legged stool to describe the separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The piece argues that damage to any one leg weakens the foundation of the republic. That framing — that the judiciary is one of three co-equal branches — runs parallel to Dworkin’s argument that Congress holds the power to check the chief justice.
The claim at the center of Dworkin’s posts — that Roberts granted the president immunity — is not accompanied by a case citation, a date, or a description of the ruling in the posts themselves. It is a characterization being asserted by Dworkin and repeated by those sharing the messages, not a finding presented with supporting documentation in the text.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claim that Chief Justice Roberts “gave the president immunity.”
The posts have circulated in the final weeks before the election, with Dworkin’s first message explicitly tying the impeachment demand to early voting. “Vote early, then tell them to,” he wrote, positioning the ballot as the first step and congressional action as the second. The second post drops the voting instruction and narrows to the impeachment demand alone, ending with “Pass it on.”
Whether the call translates into legislative action is unclear, and the posts do not indicate that any member of Congress has taken up the demand. What is clear is that the message is being carried by Dworkin’s audience and framed as a directive to spread the word — the substance of the posts themselves being the story of who is saying what, and how far the saying has traveled.
Our Take
The demand to impeach a chief justice because one dislikes a ruling is precisely the kind of institutional escalation that undermines the judiciary’s independence. Dworkin’s posts treat impeachment not as a remedy for actual misconduct but as a political tool to be wielded when the courts reach outcomes the left does not like. That is a dangerous precedent, and it is telling that the claim at its center — that Roberts “gave the president immunity” — arrives without citation or specifics, packaged for sharing rather than scrutiny. The Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach, but it does not give activists the power to convert disagreement with a ruling into a removal campaign. Voters should see this for what it is: an attempt to delegitimize the Court because it will not bend to one side’s preferences.
