The Anti-Trump Judge Who Gets All Anti-Trump Lawsuits Assigned to Him to Hold Contempt Hearings Against Trump

Enough of this.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that "probable cause exists" to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt after they violated his orders by continuing deportation flights, according to CNN. The ruling follows the Supreme Court determining that Boasberg's court was in an improper venue for the case altogether.

He's still exercising authority over the case that the Supreme Court specifically told him he had no authority -- jurisdiction -- over.

Boasberg halted the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans that were allegedly gang members.

...

Boasberg ordered the administration to stop the flights in an oral decree from the bench, but the administration refused on the grounds that it wasn't in his written order.

John Sexton reports that even CNN has problems with this judge continuing to assert his jurisdiction in defiance of the Supreme Court.

CNN legal analyst Steve Vladeck said these moves are rare.

"Holding federal executive branch officials in criminal contempt is just about unheard of, once in a blue moon," said Vladeck, a professor at the University of Georgetown School of Law. "Part of why Chief Judge Boasberg is moving cautiously is because he's trying to walk a tightrope, not letting the government off the hook for its misbehavior, but also not provoking pushback from either the DC Circuit or the Supreme Court."

Sexton continues -- the judge actually acknowledged he had no jurisdiction in the case, but then asserted that Trump needs to Respec My Authoritah anyway:

Early on in his 46-page decision, Boasberg acknowledges that the Supreme Court already vacated his temporary restraining order. How then can the Trump administration be held in contempt for something that was already dismissed by a higher court?

One might nonetheless ask how this inquiry into compliance is able to proceed at all given that the Supreme Court vacated the TRO after the events in question. That Court's later determination that the TRO suffered from a legal defect, however, does not excuse the Government's violation. Instead, it is a foundational legal precept that every judicial order "must be obeyed" -- no matter how "erroneous" it "may be" -- until a court reverses it. If a party chooses to disobey the order -- rather than wait for it to be reversed through the judicial process -- such disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies in the order...

So that's his argument. It doesn't matter that his TRO was wrong, it matters that the administration didn't obey it before it was vacated. From there, Boasberg eventually gets to the payoff, which is that he's giving the administration a week to "purge" its contempt, something it can do by obeying the TRO which the Supreme Court has already vacated.

At some point, Trump has to deploy the nuclear option and just declare he will not submit to this judge's authority, and if any higher court orders him to submit to this judge, then he will ignore that court's authority going forward as well.

posted by Ace at 04:09 PM

| Access Comments