DOJ files misconduct complaint against anti-Trump Judge James Boasberg

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has filed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for allegedly trying to “improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts,” Fox News reported. Attorney General Pam Bondi filed the complaint Monday, which was signed by Chad Mizelle, her chief of staff.

Boasberg has long been a thorn in Trump’s side as he and other judges have thwarted the president’s agenda with nationwide injunctions. However, it was Boasberg’s conduct during the meeting of the Judicial Conference of the United States in March that initiated the legal action from the Justice Department.

The complaint said that Boasberg reached out to Roberts and others, claiming that Trump and his administration “disregard rulings of federal courts,” which risks triggering “a constitutional crisis.” They believe this was an attempt to “improperly prejudice or influence” Roberts and that it “undermined the integrity and impartiality of the federal judiciary.”

The remedy suggested in the complaint was to take Boasberg off the J.G.G. v. Trump case, which involves the deportation of hundreds of illegal immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. Trump used the 1798 wartime immigration law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify it, and the ACLU and others sued the administration over it.

Supporting evidence

Just days after Boasberg allegedly made those remarks to Roberts, the judge imposed a temporary restraining order on Trump’s use of the law to send Venezuelan nationals deported from the U.S. to El Salvador. Planes set to take off for the prison were ordered to “immediately” return to the U.S.

Despite the order, it reportedly did not happen exactly as Boasberg commanded, and an investigation was launched to determine whether the Trump administration flouted those orders. In April, Boasberg also allowed a contempt charge to proceed based on the fact that the order wasn’t followed directly, though a higher appeals court eventually stayed that action.

The judge’s actions opened the door to a slew of other challenges to deportations, and the Supreme Court ruled against Trump on two of them, finding that such expedited removals violated the constitutional rights of the illegal immigrants. This continued a pattern of lower courts blocking Trump’s policies nationwide in these matters.

The Trump administration excoriated Boasberg and others whom White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called “radical left-wing judge,” though Boasberg was appointed by then-President George W. Bush as associate judge of the District of Columbia Superior Court in 2002. Still, Trump maintains that “troublemaker and agitator” Boasberg should be impeached for his actions.

Roberts publicly chided the president for making this call, which is an unusual move for the justice. It also comes as Boasberg continues to push back on the CECOT deportations, with the judge expecting the ACLU and Justice Department to meet for a status hearing every two weeks, beginning on Thursday, Aug. 7.

Judicial pushback

Although Boasberg is the target of this latest complaint, Trump has had to push back against him and several judges who have attempted to stop his agenda by nationwide injunctions for his policies in lower courts. The president received a win on this matter on June 27 after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in his favor to narrow the power of the lower courts, Fox News reported.

“Americans are finally getting what they voted for. No longer will we have rogue judges striking down President Trump’s policies across the entire nation. No longer. Today in the 6-3 opinion, Justice [Amy Coney] Barrett correctly holds that the district court lacks authority to enter nationwide or universal injunctions,” Trump said at the time.

“These lawless injunctions gave relief to everyone in the world instead of the parties before the court. As the Supreme Court held today, they turned district courts into the imperial judiciary. Active liberal justices, judges have used these injunctions to block virtually all of President Trump’s policies,” the president continued.

“I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months, we’ve seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers,” Trump said. Somehow, Boasberg was one of the judges who kept getting assigned to these cases, a fact which has piqued the interest of the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Bondi’s decision to file a complaint against Boasberg is a step in the right direction, as his actions may point to a vendetta against Trump’s agenda. The U.S. system of checks and balances between the executive and judicial branches is what it was designed to do, and Trump has every right to push back when he believes it’s not.