This isn’t the first time Chief Justice Roberts took on President Trump. (And he’s been wrong each time)

President Donald Trump is right and Chief Justice Roberts is wrong about the issue of impeaching judges.

Scott Douglas Gerber is the author of, among other books, "A Distinct Judicial Power: The Origins of an Independent Judiciary, 1606-1787" (Oxford University Press).

Six years later, on the eve of Trump’s second inauguration, Roberts raised concerns that the President might "disregard … federal court rulings." The Chief Justice called that possibility "dangerous" and said it "must be soundly rejected." What Roberts failed to mention was that other presidents have disregarded federal court rulings when they felt their constitutional oath mandated that they do so. To mention the most dramatic illustration in American history, President Andrew Jackson responded to the Supreme Court’s decision in Worcester v. Georgia by saying that "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."Roberts’ third public criticism of Trump came earlier this week when the Chief Justice issued a statement in response to the President’s call for a federal judge’s impeachment because of his handling of an Alien and Sedition Act case. "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," Roberts wrote. "The normal appellate review process exists for that reason."

Roberts’ most recent criticism of Trump is perhaps the most troubling of all. The Constitution makes clear that Congress must occasionally exercise the political courage necessary to perform its constitutional duty of impeaching federal judges who seek to rewrite the law rather than interpret it. Alexander Hamilton advised in The Federalist Papers that impeachment is a "complete security" against the "deliberate usurpations" of a federal judge, an unmistakable indication that the Framers expected the impeachment power to be more frequently invoked than it actually has been.