The filing by the Department of Justice of an official complaint of misconduct against a judge who tried to force an El Salvador-bound plane full of Venezuelan illegal migrants to turn around mid-air, James Boasberg, underscores the accelerating acrimony between the Trump administration and some quarters of the federal judiciary.
The complaint, addressed to the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Sri Srinivasan, was written by Attorney General Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle. Fox News reports that the complaint was “written and filed at the direction” of Ms. Bondi.
The filing accuses Judge Boasberg, the chief judge of the district court for the District of Columbia, of “making improper comments about President Donald J. Trump to the Chief Justice of the United States and other federal judges that have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” The District of Columbia Circuit oversees Judge Boasberg.
Alongside Judge Beryl Howell, Judge Boasberg has emerged at the vanguard of district-level judges publicly and persistently ruling against the Trump administration. He attended Yale and Yale Law School — he was a housemate of a future justice of the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh — and was a member of both the secret Skull & Bones society and Yale’s basketball team. Justice Kavanaugh was not a Bonesman.
The Trump administration has been vigorously contesting — with some success — the ability of these low level judges to block nationwide executive actions. The government scored a signature victory in the Supreme Court case of Trump v. Casa, where the justices ruled last month to curtail the use of nationwide injunctions. That case arose in the context of the effort to outlaw birthright citizenship.
Judge Boasberg, who like Judge Howel is an appointee of President Obama, is presiding over a high-profile deportation case under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, and he has tangled in court with the government to such an extent that he has threatened to initiate contempt proceedings — and Mr. Trump has threatened him with impeachment.
In the jetliner imbroglio, Judge Boasberg ruled that the deportation of Venezuelans who allegedly were members of the Tren de Aragua gang — a designated terrorist organization — to El Salvador under the AEA was deficient with respect to due process. Despite that order, the administration proceeded with most of those deportations. The government alleged that the plane carrying the migrants was already in the air. Judge Boasberg sought, unsuccessfully, to have the jet turned around.
The Supreme Court eventually vacated Judge Boasberg’s order, ruling that while due process is indeed owed even under the writ of the AEA, the proper venue to challenge the deportations was not the District of Columbia but Texas, where the migrants were being held. Mr. Trump was so enraged at Judge Boasberg that he labeled him a “radical left lunatic” and called for his impeachment.
Now Ms. Bondi’s DOJ alleges, “On March 11, 2025, Judge Boasberg attended a session of the Judicial Conference of the United States. … While there, Judge Boasberg attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges by straying from the traditional topics to express his belief that the Trump Administration would ‘disregard rulings of federal courts’ and trigger ‘a constitutional crisis.’”
The Judicial Conference of the United States is a policy-making body for the federal bench that convenes twice a year behind closed doors. The chief justice of the United States presides, and the chief judges of each judicial circuit and a district judge from that circuit attend. Several lawmakers — Senators Collins, Durbin, and Whitehouse among them — were also in attendance for parts of the proceedings.
The complaint authored by Mr. Mizelle alleges that Judge Boasberg’s comments at the conference violated the “presumption of regularity” that courts afford to the executive branch. The presumption derives from a Latin maxim that translates to: “All acts are presumed to be rightly done until proven to the contrary.” In 1926 the Supreme Court held that courts should presume that government officials “have properly discharged their official duties.”
The DOJ contends that Judge Boasberg violated the “presumption of regularity” by his intimations that the Trump administration ignored his orders to freeze the deportations of the migrants. The government maintains that it did not violate any commands from the bench.
Secretary Rubio has accused Judge Boasberg of meddling in foreign policy, which is the prerogative of the president and well outside his judicial sandbox. Judge Boasberg’s initiation of contempt proceedings in the AEA case has been frozen for the moment by the District of Columbia Circuit.
One week later, on March 18, Chief Justice Roberts issued a rare statement that appeared to rebuke the invocation of impeachment by Mr. Trump and House Republicans. He declared: “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.”
The DOJ requests that Judge Srinivasan refer the matter to a special investigative committee to determine whether Judge Boasberg is guilty of “conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts.” The government also wants a public reprimand and the removal of Judge Boasberg from the AEA case. A potential punishment could include impeachment.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
