A judicial misconduct complaint against Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of D.C. has been dismissed because the Justice Department failed to show that he exhibited bias against the Trump administration.
The allegations against Boasberg, a former prosecutor nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, were widely recirculated by conservative media. But when a federal appeals court requested evidence to back them up, administration officials failed to provide it, Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said in a decision dismissing the misconduct complaint. The decision, dated Dec. 19, was made public Saturday.
The misconduct complaint was filed last year by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s then-chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, in an unusual move that showed how President Donald Trump and his allies have ramped up attacks against federal judges across the country for stopping, slowing or criticizing the administration’s signature initiatives to gut federal agencies and quickly deport waves of migrants, often without due process.
Boasberg, who has played a prominent role as the most powerful trial court judge in the nation’s capital, has been a frequent target of criticism. He has repeatedly ruled against the Trump administration in a high-profile case brought by dozens of Venezuelan migrants who were hastily deported to a prison in El Salvador last year.
Trump has called for Boasberg to be removed from office. An impeachment resolution was introduced in the House last year and has support from 23 Republicans.
Mizelle, who has since left the Justice Department, alleged that Boasberg made inappropriate comments about the Trump administration at a working breakfast hosted by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. during a policymaking conference for the federal judiciary last March.
Although the meeting was private, a conservative website reported that Boasberg brought up concerns from his judicial colleagues that the Trump administration would defy court orders and touch off a constitutional crisis. Mizelle alleged that Boasberg “publicly forecasted his baseless predictions of presidential lawlessness, then issued erroneous rulings based on that preconceived notion.”
In dismissing the complaint, Sutton said a federal appeals court asked the Justice Department to provide evidence of what Boasberg said in the closed-door meeting but did not receive it. Even if Boasberg said what was alleged, his comments at the judicial conference would not amount to misconduct, Sutton said.
“In these settings, a judge’s expression of anxiety about executive-branch compliance with judicial orders, whether rightly feared or not, is not so far afield from customary topics at these meetings — judicial independence, judicial security, and inter-branch relations — as to violate the Codes of Judicial Conduct,” Sutton wrote.
Spokespersons for Boasberg and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Predictions that the Trump administration would flout court orders have been repeatedly borne out in the months since Mizelle called them “baseless.”
This week, Patrick J. Schiltz, the chief federal district judge in Minnesota wrote that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had violated 96 court orders since launching a crackdown on migrants and protesters in that state.
“ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” Schiltz wrote.
In Virginia, Trump aide Lindsey Halligan for nearly two months defied a court order that disqualified her from serving as U.S. attorney, according to a scathing ruling from a federal judge nominated by Trump in 2019.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has stated in a court filing that she decided to defy a court order, from Boasberg, to return a group of Venezuelan migrants who had been hurried out of the United States under a wartime statute, the Alien Enemies Act, and sent to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador last year. Noem said she was following guidance from top Justice Department officials at the time.
Those moves led Boasberg to start an inquiry into whether Trump administration officials should be held in contempt for violating court orders. Two Trump appointees on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit have paused the contempt inquiry, but a majority of that court has signaled that Boasberg was justified in launching it.
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