John Roberts's Rebuke of Trump Left Some Wondering Whether He's a Republican

There was a time when the party allegiances of members of the Supreme Court was seen as irrelevant. The members of the court were meant to be judges first and foremost, and that meant that the question of who appointed them was supposed to be seen as secondary.

More recently, though, the Court has become much more explicitly political, with conservative justices who tend to rule one way and liberal justices who tend to rule another. These rules aren't hard and fast, but they tend to be predictive. Following a recent rebuke of President Trump from Chief Justice John Roberts, though, many want to know if he is a Republican. Here's what we know.

Although he famously said that Supreme Court justices should just "call balls and strikes" during his confirmation hearing, John Roberts is by any conventional standard a Republican. Prior to becoming a judge, he worked in the Reagan administration and spent part of his time concentrating on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which he would ultimately help overturn parts of as a member of the Supreme Court.

He was nominated by George H.W. Bush for a role on the appellate courts, and nominated by George W. Bush to take over as the chief justice. Although he has claimed that judges should work first and foremost as interpreters of the law, Roberts has always taken a Republican-leaning bent on his rulings, although he is less extreme than some other members of the Court that are even more nakedly partisan.

Although Roberts has generally been aligned with the president, and even ruled that he was immune from criminal prosecution for "official acts" that he took as president, radically expanding the scope of his power, Roberts did offer a rebuke of the president after Trump called for judges who ruled against his administration to be impeached.

"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose," Roberts's statement read.

Trump has been railing against judges who rule against his administration for months, but made things even more intense when he called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who had blocked his deportation of Venezuelan migrants.

"This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!" Trump wrote.

Roberts decided to align himself against the president and with the judiciary, and as a result, some are now questioning how closely he is really aligned with Trump.

Of course, Roberts helped to facilitate Trump's return to office, ensuring that he would not be criminally prosecuted for Jan. 6 and helping to create the political environment that led to Trump's rise. Now, though, it seems he's a little concerned about whether the judiciary will be able to hold off Trump's assault.