Judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court, has become a bit of a household name over the past year or so — in large part because of the rather notable rulings he's made in the case arising from the now infamous flights removing suspected Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador, pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act, in March of 2025.
The J.G.G. v. Trump case has already made its way up to the Supreme Court once, and while the case is still working its way through the courts on the merits, there's been a contemporaneous contempt proceeding, in which Judge Boasberg has been assessing whether he'd hold certain members of the Trump administration in criminal contempt over its actions following his order to effectively turn the planes (already in transit to El Salvador) around.
In connection with that, the administration sought a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, essentially asking that Boasberg's contempt inquisition be shut down. On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit granted the writ and halted the district court’s ongoing contempt investigation into the administration’s March deportation flights, blocking further testimony and fact-finding aimed at determining whether officials defied a temporary restraining order.
RELATED: Welp: Boasberg Orders Trump Admin. to Bring Back, Pay for Venezuelans Deported Under AEA
Huge Win for Trump Administration As DC Circuit Court of Appeals Tosses Boasberg Contempt Order
In a 2-1 decision, the appellate court ordered Boasberg to terminate the criminal contempt proceedings in the case. Judge Neomi Rao (Trump) authored the majority decision, with Judge Justin Walker concurring (Trump), and Judge J. Michelle Childs (Obama) penning a lengthy dissent.
The crux of the majority decision is this:
The Supreme Court vacated the district court’s order because it was premised on a legal error and the plaintiffs’ suit was brought in the wrong court. Nonetheless, the district court threatened to hold government officials in criminal contempt unless they complied with the now-vacated order by, for instance, taking back custody of the plaintiffs. We issued a writ of mandamus vacating the court’s first contempt order.
Undeterred, the district court is proceeding with criminal contempt for the government’s decision to transfer the plaintiffs to the custody of El Salvador. To cooperate, the government identified then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as the official responsible for the transfer decision. The district court previously said this was the only information it required to make a referral for prosecution. But the district court has now expanded its inquest and ordered hearings to extract more information from government counsel about exactly what happened last March. The government petitions for mandamus.
The widening gyre of the district court’s investigation again calls for the extraordinary remedy of mandamus to halt the judicial “impairment of another branch in the performance of its constitutional duties.” Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 390 (2004) (cleaned up). The district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy. These proceedings are a clear abuse of discretion, as the district court’s order said nothing about transferring custody of the plaintiffs and therefore lacks the clarity to support criminal contempt based on the transfer of custody. Moreover, the government has already provided the name of the responsible official, so further judicial investigation is unnecessary and therefore improper. In these circumstances, mandamus is appropriate to prevent the district court from assuming an antagonistic jurisdiction that encroaches on the autonomy of the Executive Branch.
And just to put an exclamation point on it, Judge Walker, in his concurrence, noted:
After the written order, the Government took action that the oral order had arguably prohibited (and that the written order did not prohibit). So if the effect of the (broader) oral order survived the (narrower) written order, the Government’s conduct would raise a host of difficult questions. But before issuing its oral order, the district court said, “I will issue a minute order memorializing this so you don’t have to race to write it down.”
In my view, the district court’s “you don’t have to . . .write it down” line simplifies this otherwise complicated case because it made the written order supersede the oral order. The Government did not violate the oral order while it was in effect. And at no point did the Government violate the written order that superseded it.
Ultimately, this is a huge win for the administration and a solid smack of Judge Boasberg's hand. Now, that said, it's entirely likely that there will be a petition for rehearing en banc — and the full court might come down differently. And, it's also important to note, this isn't a ruling on the underlying legality of the AEA flights themselves. This isn't over yet.
Still, the administration has to be extremely pleased with this ruling.
Editor's Note: Unelected federal judges are hijacking President Trump's agenda and insulting the will of the people.
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