A federal judge’s inquiry to determine which Trump administration officials violated a court order that barred deportation flights to El Salvador is back on after a seven-month pause for appeals.
The order, issued in March by Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of the District of Columbia, would have lasted for two weeks. Instead, it touched off one of the biggest clashes between President Donald Trump and the judiciary this year. Trump has made mass deportations a cornerstone of his second-term agenda. Judges across the country have found that many migrants are being wrongly deported or being denied the right to contest their removals in court.
Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment after the order, calling the judge a “troublemaker and agitator.” Other administration officials responded with “willful disregard,” Boasberg said, and continued to fly migrants to El Salvador.
At a hearing Wednesday, Boasberg said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit made clear in a series of opinions issued last week that his contempt inquiry could proceed. The appeals court had previously halted the proceedings in April.
“The bottom line is the court of appeals has permitted me to go forward with my inquiry,” Boasberg said. “My inquiry is not to determine whether to hold the government in contempt, but rather to find whether there is sufficient information to make a contempt referral.”
Boasberg launched the criminal contempt inquiry in April, a month after issuing the temporary restraining order. That order barred authorities from transporting a group of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador under a wartime statute, the Alien Enemies Act, to give the migrants a chance to contest their removals in court.
Two flights with migrants were in the air when Boasberg first ruled orally from the bench on March 15, and they were not recalled. Two more flights departed the next day, Boasberg said, hours after he had issued the temporary restraining order in writing.
A Justice Department attorney, Tiberius Davis, told the judge at Wednesday’s hearing that the government continued to object to the contempt proceedings. Boasberg said that a majority of judges on the appeals court had given him the green light to continue them and that he intended to get witness statements from at least two people: a Justice Department whistleblower who was fired, Erez Reuveni, and Drew Ensign, a Justice Department attorney whom Reuveni accused of misleading the court about the migrant flights.
According to Reuveni, the Justice Department official who told subordinates to disregard Boasberg’s oral ruling on March 15 was Emil Bove, a former personal lawyer for Trump who is now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
“If you want to provide me full declarations from people explaining exactly what happened, that might obviate the need to call people as witnesses,” Boasberg told Davis. “But I certainly intend to find out what happened that day, and the government can assist me to whatever degree it wishes.”
The Supreme Court ultimately voided the temporary restraining order, and the migrants were eventually transported from El Salvador to Venezuela. But a contempt inquiry was warranted, Boasberg said, because administration officials defied his order before the Supreme Court issued its ruling, and “such disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies.”
His opinion in April said Trump administration officials could avoid the contempt proceedings by giving the Venezuelan migrants an opportunity to challenge their deportations in court. Otherwise, the judge said, he would require that the officials who flouted the court order be identified. The judge said he could also seek sworn witness statements and “refer the matter for prosecution.” And if the Justice Department declined to prosecute the contempt of court, Boasberg said, he would appoint a lawyer to do it.
A federal appeals court panel halted Boasberg’s contempt inquiry by a 2-1 vote in August, with two Trump appointees in the majority.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week denied a request to rehear the case with all 11 active judges participating in the proceedings. However, six of those judges said Boasberg was legally justified in starting the contempt inquiry and indicated that Boasberg could restart those proceedings.
Boasberg told lawyers in the case to submit court filings by Monday proposing witnesses and next steps.
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