Attorney General Pam Bondi is tryin’ it with Chief Judge James Boasberg.
At an emergency hearing on Saturday regarding Venezuelan migrants summarily deported to a slave prison in El Salvador pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act, Judge Boasberg ordered the government to return any migrants under DHS control, including those already on airplanes.
“However that’s accomplished, whether turning around a plane or not embarking anyone on the plane or those people covered by this on the plane, I leave to you,” he said at 6:48 p.m. “But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”
After which the government unloaded at least two planeloads of deportees, and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele seemingly joked about defying the court in a tweet that was reposted by multiple Trump administration officials.
In court, the DOJ has been forced to pretend that it is not in open contempt of a federal judge’s order. At a hearing on Monday, Assistant US Attorney Abhishek Kambli argued variously that the judge’s oral order didn’t count until it was memorialized in writing, that the court lost jurisdiction once the planes departed US airspace, and that he could neither discuss the status of the flights nor explain on what legal basis he was refusing to do so.
This last argument seems to have incensed the judge most of all, and he ordered the government to answer several questions about the deportation flights by Wednesday at noon, or explain why not.
That did not happen — or at least not yet. Instead, the government threw a giant hissy fit on the public docket, lobbing ad hominem accusations at Judge Boasberg and screeching incoherently about the separation of powers.
The Court has now spent more time trying to ferret out information about the Government’s flight schedules and relations with foreign countries than it did in investigating the facts before certifying the class action in this case. That observation reflects how upside-down this case has become, as digressive micromanagement has outweighed consideration of the case’s legal issues. The distraction of the specific facts surrounding the movements of an airplane has derailed this case long enough and should end until the Circuit Court has had a chance to weigh in.
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton.
It is similarly bold to suggest that ex parte discussions with a judge who was the head of the FISA court jeopardize national security. And yet!
Worse, the risks created by addressing the Court’s pending questions would undermine the Executive Branch’s ability to negotiate with foreign sovereigns in the future by subjecting all of the arrangements resulting from any such negotiations—as well as the negotiations themselves—to a serious risk of micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expeditions and potential public disclosure.
The DOJ lawyers demand that the court “stay or delay its order to provide Defendants an opportunity to make an orderly but expedited decision as to whether to invoke the state secrets privilege and, if so, as to what information.”
And they got their wish … sort of. Judge Boasberg did indeed give them extra time to (pretend to) finish their homework.
“Although their grounds for such request at first blush are not persuasive, the Court will extend the deadline for one more day,” he wrote, exquisitely channeling a rattlesnake rearing back before sinking its fangs into an offending flank.
“To begin, the Court seeks this information, not as a ‘micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expedition[],’ id. at 2, but to determine if the Government deliberately flouted its Orders issued on March 15, 2025, and, if so, what the consequences should be,” he warned, reminding the government that, irrespective of the DC Circuit appeal, “Whether those TROs were legally defective or legally sound does not govern the compliance inquiry.”
In support, the court cited Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307 (1967), in which SCOTUS upheld the trial court’s contempt sanctions on a noncompliant party, irrespective of the whether the disobeyed injunction was later overturned.
Judge Boasberg went on to remind the government that you can’t just shout “STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE!” and run away laughing. You have to actually make a credible claim, which would be somewhat undercut here by the fact that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been flapping his yap about this operation all week on Twitter, that President Bukele shot a music video showcasing the prisoners being taken off the plane, and that multiple members of the US government reposted it.
Also, there’s the awkward fact that, to date, the DOJ hasn’t even argued that the flight information was classified, much less a state secret. But that’s a problem for another day — Thursday!
Oh, and PS, Judge Boasberg does not take kindly to the suggestion that he can’t be trusted with non-public information.
“The Government also maintains that ‘disclosure of the information sought could implicate the affairs of the United States allies,’” he notes. “But it never explains how in camera disclosure to the Court could possibly lead to such a result.”
That explanation will come too late for the men thrown into a dangerous slave prison based on nothing more than the president’s dubious assertion that they are members of a terrorist gang. But it will certainly make for an interesting filing.
JGG v. Trump [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
The post DOJ Plays Tractor Chicken With Federal Judge Over Venezuelan Deportations appeared first on Above the Law.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is tryin’ it with Chief Judge James Boasberg.
At an emergency hearing on Saturday regarding Venezuelan migrants summarily deported to a slave prison in El Salvador pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act, Judge Boasberg ordered the government to return any migrants under DHS control, including those already on airplanes.
“However that’s accomplished, whether turning around a plane or not embarking anyone on the plane or those people covered by this on the plane, I leave to you,” he said at 6:48 p.m. “But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”
After which the government unloaded at least two planeloads of deportees, and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele seemingly joked about defying the court in a tweet that was reposted by multiple Trump administration officials.
In court, the DOJ has been forced to pretend that it is not in open contempt of a federal judge’s order. At a hearing on Monday, Assistant US Attorney Abhishek Kambli argued variously that the judge’s oral order didn’t count until it was memorialized in writing, that the court lost jurisdiction once the planes departed US airspace, and that he could neither discuss the status of the flights nor explain on what legal basis he was refusing to do so.
This last argument seems to have incensed the judge most of all, and he ordered the government to answer several questions about the deportation flights by Wednesday at noon, or explain why not.
That did not happen — or at least not yet. Instead, the government threw a giant hissy fit on the public docket, lobbing ad hominem accusations at Judge Boasberg and screeching incoherently about the separation of powers.
The Court has now spent more time trying to ferret out information about the Government’s flight schedules and relations with foreign countries than it did in investigating the facts before certifying the class action in this case. That observation reflects how upside-down this case has become, as digressive micromanagement has outweighed consideration of the case’s legal issues. The distraction of the specific facts surrounding the movements of an airplane has derailed this case long enough and should end until the Circuit Court has had a chance to weigh in.
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton.
It is similarly bold to suggest that ex parte discussions with a judge who was the head of the FISA court jeopardize national security. And yet!
Worse, the risks created by addressing the Court’s pending questions would undermine the Executive Branch’s ability to negotiate with foreign sovereigns in the future by subjecting all of the arrangements resulting from any such negotiations—as well as the negotiations themselves—to a serious risk of micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expeditions and potential public disclosure.
The DOJ lawyers demand that the court “stay or delay its order to provide Defendants an opportunity to make an orderly but expedited decision as to whether to invoke the state secrets privilege and, if so, as to what information.”
And they got their wish … sort of. Judge Boasberg did indeed give them extra time to (pretend to) finish their homework.
“Although their grounds for such request at first blush are not persuasive, the Court will extend the deadline for one more day,” he wrote, exquisitely channeling a rattlesnake rearing back before sinking its fangs into an offending flank.
“To begin, the Court seeks this information, not as a ‘micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expedition[],’ id. at 2, but to determine if the Government deliberately flouted its Orders issued on March 15, 2025, and, if so, what the consequences should be,” he warned, reminding the government that, irrespective of the DC Circuit appeal, “Whether those TROs were legally defective or legally sound does not govern the compliance inquiry.”
In support, the court cited Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307 (1967), in which SCOTUS upheld the trial court’s contempt sanctions on a noncompliant party, irrespective of the whether the disobeyed injunction was later overturned.
Judge Boasberg went on to remind the government that you can’t just shout “STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE!” and run away laughing. You have to actually make a credible claim, which would be somewhat undercut here by the fact that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been flapping his yap about this operation all week on Twitter, that President Bukele shot a music video showcasing the prisoners being taken off the plane, and that multiple members of the US government reposted it.
Also, there’s the awkward fact that, to date, the DOJ hasn’t even argued that the flight information was classified, much less a state secret. But that’s a problem for another day — Thursday!
Oh, and PS, Judge Boasberg does not take kindly to the suggestion that he can’t be trusted with non-public information.
“The Government also maintains that ‘disclosure of the information sought could implicate the affairs of the United States allies,’” he notes. “But it never explains how in camera disclosure to the Court could possibly lead to such a result.”
That explanation will come too late for the men thrown into a dangerous slave prison based on nothing more than the president’s dubious assertion that they are members of a terrorist gang. But it will certainly make for an interesting filing.
JGG v. Trump [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
