It was an uneventful first day at work for Brett Kavanaugh, whose cheerful willingness to say anything in pursuit of political power won him Senate confirmation by the narrowest of margins on Saturday. Those of you who are appalled by the prospect of this serial liar spending the next three-plus decades of his life gutting Roe in between Nationals games—according to pollsters, a majority of Americans—may be wondering if anything more can be done to correct for the cowardice of Susan Collins and Jeff Flake. As is always the case with constitutional law–adjacent questions, the answer is a resounding maybe: Federal judges, like the presidents who appoint them, can be impeached and removed from office.

What are the chances that the Supreme Court's first Republican justice suffers such an ignominious fate? Let's find out together!

Wait, I thought Supreme Court justices served for life?

Sort of! No iteration of the phrase "life tenure" actually appears in the Constitution; instead, Article III, Section 1 provides that federal judges keep their jobs as long as they exhibit "good behaviour," because the Founding Fathers were Brits at heart. Once they are confirmed by the Senate, judges remain judges for as long as they (1) are alive, (2) want to be judges, and (3) don't do anything terrible.

What are some of those terrible things judges can do to merit impeachment?

The same Article II language that governs presidential impeachments applies here: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." (Yes, the drafters of this language apparently relied on capitalization conventions derived from the current president's Twitter account.)

"Civil officers"? Who are they?

Just as it failed to include a list of "high crimes and misdemeanors," the framers did not specify who falls into the category of "civil officers," because doing so would have made too much sense. But even if the term's outer limits remain murky, presidential appointees are safely within the scope. In 229 years, Congress has conducted 16 full impeachment trials; of these, one was for a senator, and it ended in 1799, when the Senate acquitted him after determining that he was not a "civil officer" over whom it had jurisdiction. Two were for presidents, Johnson and Clinton. The remaining 13 were for judges, including one Supreme Court justice, Samuel Chase, who was acquitted in 1805.

What have these judges been impeached for?

Perjury and its derivatives, mostly—especially in recent years. Louisiana judge Thomas Porteous lied under oath about his bankruptcy filings and was removed from office in 2010. Harry Claiborne suffered the same fate in 1985 for falsifying federal tax returns. Mississippi's Walter Nixon was convicted in 1989 for lying to the FBI about his intervention in the criminal trial of a buddy's son; that same year, Florida judge Alcee Hastings got the boot for taking a bribe from a defendant and then lying about it under oath. Today Hastings is a sitting member of Congress in Florida, because Florida.

And if you'll recall, President Clinton was impeached in 1998 for perjuring himself while testifying about his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. Guess which young Republican operative working on Ken Starr's prosecution team argued vociferously that Clinton's conduct merited removal from office?