When Elon Musk and some Republican lawmakers haven’t liked a judicial ruling recently, they’ve been quick to suggest the nuclear option — impeach the judge who made it and remove them from their position — while decrying the “tyranny” of the nation’s systems of law and order.

But impeaching a judge requires clearing a very high bar, then engaging in an orderly process. Lawmakers calling for judicial impeachment are largely making hollow threats, one expert told HuffPost, but these threats are alarming nonetheless.

In over 200 years, just 15 federal judges have been impeached in the United States. Only eight of them were removed from their position; the others were acquitted or saw their charges dismissed.

The grounds for impeachment for a federal judge are high crimes and misdemeanors or treason. Generally speaking, the term “high crimes” is not well-defined, but it usually covers things like fraud, bribery or lying to the government. A federal judge does not have to be the subject of any disciplinary action or complaints before being impeached.

It is up to the discretion of Congress to decide when to draw up articles of impeachment. Once drafted, the House votes on whether to adopt the articles. If they are adopted, the next hurdle is the U.S. Senate, where a two-thirds majority must agree in order to convict and remove the judge.

Republicans currently hold only a slight majority in the Senate, which means the prospect of judicial impeachment or removal is almost entirely a fantasy.

And yet it keeps coming up.

Most recently, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) formally introduced articles to impeach Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates.

On Monday, in a screed on X (formerly Twitter), Ogles called the Washington, D.C.-based jurist, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001, a “predator” and a “RADICAL LGBTQ activist.”

Ogles’ ire at Bates stems from a lawsuit filed by a group of physicians and medical professionals known as Doctors for America. They sued the administration over President Donald Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies to eliminate “gender ideology extremism” from their ranks by deleting public-facing information mentioning gender ideology or appearing to reference anything beyond two biological sexes.

Part of what was scrubbed included key HIV infection data, including data related to children. Clinical trial data was also taken down, as was information for doctors on how to monitor or respond to disease outbreaks.

Bates ruled against the Trump administration on Feb. 11, directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and Department of Health and Human Services to temporarily restore data to their webpages. (Bates issued another ruling in the case on Tuesday, and the government has agreed to maintain the sites until further review is completed in March.)

In his initial ruling, he underlined the stakes involved.

“If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions. The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health,” Bates wrote.

Republican Reps. Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Eli Crane (Ariz.) and Derrick Van Orden (Wis.) also have called for judges to be impeached or have filed articles of impeachment, citing abuse of power by way of politicization. None of these lawmakers responded to HuffPost’s requests for comment, including questions about why they believed their articles of impeachment met the criteria of high crimes and misdemeanors.

And leading the charge for weeks has been Trump’s right-hand man: Musk.

When U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer for the Southern District of New York stopped the so-called Department of Government Efficiency that Musk helms from running roughshod through the sensitive Treasury Department records earlier this month, Musk bristled in a post: “A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!”

Musk piped up again a few days later, when Clyde called for the impeachment of Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island, an Obama-era appointee who has been on the bench since 2011. McConnell temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding.

“Momentum is growing rapidly to impeach activist judges who repeatedly fail to follow the law,” Musk wrote on Feb. 15, alongside photos of both McConnell and Engelmayer.

Musk was back at it this week after the administration had another bumpy ride in court and was ordered to release billions in U.S. foreign aid that has been locked up in the freeze.

“If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY,” Musk wrote.

The impeachment calls are mostly histrionics, said Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Judiciary Program.

But that doesn’t mean there are no potential consequences.

“The most important thing to understand about these articles of impeachment is that there is no chance at all that these judges will be removed on these grounds,” Keith said. “This is anti-democratic theater, which is not to say it’s not harmful, it’s just there’s no chance these judges will be removed on these grounds.”

Lawmakers’ motivation isn’t clear, he said, “especially since they know that they have no chance of success.”

“But I do know that we are in a perilous moment for our democracy and that one of the courts’ primary responsibilities is serving as a check on the other branches and what these articles of impeachment ultimately become is a sort of threat against judges,” he said. “It’s hanging over the head of judges who are considering issuing decisions against the executive branch or against Congress.”

“No sitting judge wants to have articles of impeachment introduced against them and then go through a Senate trial,” Keith said, even if there’s no chance they’ll be removed.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told HuffPost this week that threats of judicial impeachment fit into the broader pictures Republicans are trying to paint about the political landscape.

“What’s worrisome is when MAGA decides that anybody who disagrees with them is corrupt, when they start policing the judiciary with fake impeachments designed to intimidate,” Whitehouse said. “I think the most significant thing that the Republicans want to do is to pound a particular narrative home. You know, Trump wasn’t actually a criminal. There was a weaponized thing against him. Climate change is a hoax.”

“You know, they’ve got a whole litany of crap, basically, that they sell by repetition,” he added. “I think the noise around an impeachment could very well assist in that political goal of pounding home their false narrative.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a longtime ally to Trump, said there is no doubt what Republicans would do if they could get the votes.

“Obviously we will begin impeachment proceedings if and only if the House passes them,” he said. Lee has also posted on X in support of judicial impeachment.

These calls to impeach and remove are also coming at a time when threats of political violence, including against the judiciary, are on the rise.

The U.S. Marshals Service — which is responsible for protecting 2,700 federal judges and some 30,000 prosecutors and court staff — said threats to judges have doubled in just three years, according to a Reuters report.

Three state judges and one federal judge have been killed in the last 24 years. In 2020, the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas was killed and her husband was injured when a gunman posing as a FedEx driver came to her New Jersey home.

“Singling out judges by name as worthy of impeachment on unfounded grounds, in this moment where there is such a threat against public officials, is really troubling,” Keith said. “I’m sure that no government official, whatever the branch, wants to have their name out there like this at this moment.”

Igor Bobic contributed reporting.