Sen. Cotton Calls for Impeachment of Biden-Appointed Judge over 8-Year Sentence of Would-Be Kavanaugh Assassin

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) suggested that a Biden-appointed judge should be investigated or impeached after Nicholas Roske, who attempted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, received an eight-year prison sentence.

During an interview on Fox News, Cotton criticized Judge Deborah Boardman for having sentenced Roske, who now identifies as a transgender female and uses the name “Sophie,” to 97 months in prison. Cotton noted that Roske “should be in prison for life, or at least a lot longer than eight years.”

“This man — and he is a man — traveled across the country with the express purpose of kidnapping and killing a center-right Supreme Court justice,” Cotton said. “He was outside his home, he had the tools to break and enter, the tools to bind him up and to kidnap him and ultimately kill him. He should be in prison for life, or at least a lot longer than eight years. This radical, left-wing Biden judge, though, gave him only eight years, and she expressly said it was because he wouldn’t be housed in a female prison — because he now thinks he’s a woman.”

Cotton continued to admit that “usually any effort to impeach a federal judge is ill-advised and goes nowhere,” and added that he thinks “the House should begin an investigation” as to whether or not “this is grounds for impeachment.”

“When this judge expressly refuses to give a proper sentence because she disagrees with the Trump administration’s policy on not putting men in women’s prison, I think the House should begin an investigation on whether this is grounds for impeachment,” Cotton said.

Politico reported that Boardman “questioned whether Roske would receive adequate mental health treatment in federal prison,” and that “when delivering the sentence,” Boardman took into account that Roske, a biological male, identifies as a transgender female.

In a statement provided to Breitbart News, Cotton pointed out that “judges are supposed to apply the law as written, not make special preferences” based on their politics.

“Judges are supposed to apply the law as written, not make special preferences based on their personal, far-left politics,” Cotton said. “Judge Boardman should be investigated and impeached.”

Roske’s sentencing comes after he pleaded guilty in April 2025 to attempting to kill Kavanaugh. Under Roske’s guilty plea, he admitted that in June 2022, “he flew from Los Angeles International Airport to Dulles International Airport with a firearm and ammunition in his checked baggage” and then traveled to Montgomery County, Maryland, with the intention of killing Kavanaugh.