Has any U.S. president ever sought to arrest or remove a governor and what happened?
Executive summary
No U.S. president has ever personally arrested a sitting state governor, and there is no clear historical precedent for a president unilaterally removing a governor from office; removals of governors have happened through state impeachment and conviction or through ordinary criminal processes, not by presidential arrest [1] [2]. Modern claims that presidents threatened mass arrests of governors—for example about Barack Obama sending National Security Letters to governors—have been debunked as misinformation [3].
1. Historical precedent and the constitutional baseline
The Constitution and statute law do not give the President a general, personal power to arrest state governors, and legal commentators note that while federal forces can be used to suppress rebellion under statutes like 10 U.S.C. §332, that is not the same as a presidential arrest power over governors in ordinary times [1]. Historically, when governors have been removed from office it was overwhelmingly through state impeachment and conviction—there have been roughly 15 gubernatorial impeachments in U.S. history with eight convictions resulting in removal—rather than by a federal executive physically arresting or ousting them [2].
2. Misreports and a notable debunking: the Obama “arrest” story
A widely circulated claim that President Barack Obama served 14 state governors with National Security Letters threatening arrest for forming state defense forces spread online in 2013 and resurfaced later, but investigative fact-checking treated the claim as baseless and traced it to a single deleted blog post; Snopes explains NSLs are demand letters used by agencies and not arrest warrants, and found no evidence the President had issued such threats to governors [3]. That episode illustrates how easily the idea of presidential arrest of governors can be amplified online despite lacking documentary support [3].
3. The statutory tools often cited — and their limits
Legal analyses point toward narrow statutory authorities that allow federal intervention in extreme circumstances: for instance, 10 U.S.C. §332 permits federal forces to address unlawful obstructions or rebellion that make normal law enforcement impracticable, and commentators say such statutes could in theory be read to justify federal action against state actors in an insurrection context, but they do not confer a standalone presidential “power of arrest” over governors [1]. In practice, invoking such authorities would be fraught with constitutional and political consequences and has rarely, if ever, been used to arrest state executives [1].
4. When federal power and governors have clashed in recent years
Contemporary confrontations have mainly involved threats to federalize National Guard forces or to invoke the Insurrection Act rather than actual arrests; for example, news coverage documented discussion of the Insurrection Act during unrest and legal advocacy groups flagged presidential threats to use it in cities such as Minneapolis, and state officials have publicly criticized past presidents for attempting to marshal federal force against state jurisdictions [4] [5]. California’s official commentary on “six times Trump didn’t take over a state guard” frames such maneuvers as political and legally contested actions rather than straightforward exercises of arrest power [5].
5. Case study from the 19th century: state removal through impeachment, not federal arrest
The clearest historical example involving removal of a governor that involved force was North Carolina’s post–Reconstruction case of Governor William Woods Holden, who ordered troops to arrest suspected Ku Klux Klan members and was later impeached and removed by the state legislature for alleged illegal use of military force — a state-initiated removal, not a presidential arrest or federal ouster [2]. That episode underscores that internal state processes, not the presidency, have been the mechanism for punishing or removing governors for using force or overreaching authority [2].
6. Conclusion: practice, politics and the absence of presidential precedent
In sum, while presidents have statutory tools to address rebellions and have publicly threatened to deploy federal force in conflicts with state officials, no president has established a precedent of arresting a sitting governor, and removals of governors have historically been handled through state impeachment, conviction, or ordinary criminal proceedings rather than by a unilateral presidential arrest [1] [2] [4]. Reporting that claims otherwise should be treated with scrutiny and checked against primary documents and fact-checking outlets, because the narrative of a president “arresting governors” often conflates legal authorities, political threats, and misinformation [3] [1].