One of the greatest abuses of the Democratic party in the past eight years has been their use of impeachment investigations and charges against their political opponents. From President Donald Trump to conservative justices, liberal members have demanded impeachments over everything from opposing the NFL kneelers to hanging revolutionary-era flags. Now, some Republican members are calling for the impeachment of judges who ruled against Trump’s earlier executive orders and programs. Elon Musk has supported this effort. It would be a grave mistake to follow the Democratic example in the misuse of impeachment powers to target judges or justices.

I testified in the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden on the use and the abuse of this power.  I also was lead counsel in the last judicial impeachment trial in the Senate. In my view, this is not an appropriate use of impeachment and could seriously undermine our constitutional system.

I have disagreed with some of the decisions enjoining Trump’s efforts to reduce the size and waste of the federal government. That is not because I support the extreme reliance on executive orders. Such orders can be a threat to our tripartite system of governance. I often do criticize the use of executive power to circumvent Congress by both Democratic and Republican presidents. Many presidents have sought to concentrate power in the executive branch, a dangerous usurpation of authority in a system premised on the division of governing powers. That imperial model of the presidency should be resisted by both courts and Congress.

Many of these orders, however, focus on the running of the executive branch where Article III powers are most robust. Presidents must carry out constitutional legislative mandates. However, they retain considerable latitude in how they carry out such mandates.

Regardless of how one feels about the pace or wisdom of these moves, Trump has authority under Article II of the Constitution to make significant changes to the structure and size of the executive branch.

Despite this view, the devil is in the details. The sweeping scope and pace of the moves raise good-faith concerns over compliance with federal laws and dedicated federal spending. It is common for presidents, including Joe Biden, to issue a flurry of executive orders negating their predecessors’ policies. Ultimately, the underlying legal issues must be hashed out in the courts. Presidents often prevail in most, but not all, such uses of executive power.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R., Ga.) and others are upset with U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer’s temporary blocking of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing U.S. Treasury Department systems responsible for trillions of dollars in payments.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R., Tenn.) has filed a resolution seeking to have U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C., removed after he ordered the Trump administration to restore government health websites that were taken offline.

Other judges have been named as potential targets for ruling against the Trump Administration. Musk supported the effort and posted a message stating, “Time to impeach judges who violate the law.”

The problem is that they are not “violating the law” but simply holding an opposing viewpoint on the law’s meaning. This is why we have appellate courts. In the past, Democrats have called for impeaching judges who ruled against their own agenda. Is the GOP now going to simply replicate the lawfare and impeachment mania that consumed the Democratic party?

Rep. Clyde objected that these judges are

“not just hurting the president. You’re hurting the American people because they’re the ones who elected him, and they’re the ones who want him to do this – to exercise these specific authorities. And these judges are really denying the American people their rights.”

Indeed, judges often frustrate politicians in fulfilling campaign promises. They are designed to be counter-majoritarian and to resist popular demands when those demands contravene constitutional values. Sometimes they are themselves wrong in using such Article III powers. However, it is vital to our system to support an independent judiciary in working through such different legal viewpoints.

Another judge who has been targeted is District Judge John McConnell. According to WPRI, he is under fire for his public statement that courts must “stand and enforce the rule of law, that is, against arbitrary and capricious actions by what could be a tyrant or could be whatnot. “

Once again, I have criticized both conservative and liberal judges (and justices) for such public commentary. I view it as a great disservice to the courts for judges to pander to political groups or popular sentiment. Such commentary is worthy of judicial complaints under the Judicial Code of Ethics. However, comments like Judge McConnell’s would not satisfy the high standard demanded for impeachment.

The most difficult challenge for any political movement is the use of restraint to prevent reforms from becoming revenge. I understand the frustration with some of these initial decisions. However, they are merely the start of a process for review and resolution in our court system. We have the oldest and most stable constitutional system in history in large part due to our independent judiciary. We should not allow the frustration with court rulings to become the defenestration of our Constitution values.

In a Madisonian system, it is often as important how we do things as what we do. These are times that demand the greatest measure of commitment to our constitutional system; a leap of faith in a system that has served us brilliantly for centuries. Our system does not guarantee that we have good judging or even good judges. It guarantees that any bad decisions can be corrected in the course of our legal process. It is a time to allow that process to take its course through the courts, not Congress.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”