Anti-Trump Judge Boasberg, Defying SCOTUS, Moves to Hold Trump Administration in Contempt

Despite a clear Supreme Court Decision denying him jurisdiction and cancelling his orders to return murderous gang members, who had been deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, partisan Judge James Boasberg has issued another order in that same case to hold Trump Administration officials in contempt.

UPDATE: On Friday, a 3-judge appellate panel split 2-1 to order Boasberg to temporarily halt his contempt proceeding while they considered the Trump Administration’s appeal papers. They emphasized that they had reached no determination concerning the merits of the matter, and the pause “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits” of Boasberg’s contempt proceeding. The panel’s decision was intended only to provide “sufficient opportunity” for the court to consider the appeal.

As we reported on April 7, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that Boasberg had usurped jurisdiction that he did not possess to bring the case into his Washington, D.C., courtroom. First the Supreme Court said that the case could not be brought under the Administrative Procedures Act, which Boasberg used as a pretence for jurisdiction, and second, the Supreme Court said the case could only be brought as a request for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, and that habeas actions must be brought where the plaintiffs are held in custody, which in this case was in Texas.

As reported by AmericanVantagePoint.com, “What SCOTUS did, very simply, was to decide that any legal challenges to actions under the Alien Enemies Act were required to be brought as petitions for a Writ of Habeas Corpus  and these could only be brought in the jurisdiction where the plaintiffs were confined.  Thus, the high court determined that the only appropriate legal avenue for these plaintiffs was via Habeas and only in Texas.  Simply put, Boasberg in D.C. has no jurisdiction, and so the case was effectively dismissed* and all of Boasberg’s orders and rulings were vacated.” Note our asterisk in our original report. We explained: “*For a fact, SCOTUS did not dismiss the case, but its decision now goes back to Boasberg who really has no choice but to dismiss the case himself, as he has no jurisdiction to continue.”

Boasberg, however, being a renegade judge, cannot accept being dethroned by the Supreme Court, so instead of dismissing the case (and presumably allowing the plaintiffs, should they choose, to refile it as a habeas matter in Texas), he has issued an Order to set the stage for a Contempt judgment against Trump officials.

Boasberg is but one of a large group of partisan judges (all Democrat-Party activist judges) who have attempted to stymie the Trump Administration with multiple orders “staying” or “enjoining” Trump’s efforts to revise how things are done by the Federal Government. We have previously reported on these rogue judges.

We term Boasberg a “renegade judge” and a “rogue judge,” because we view him as operating outside the bounds of law, establishing his own fiefdom from which to oversee and overrule the actions of the Executive Branch. As a federal judge, his duty, as set forth in his Oath, is to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me … under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Instead, he is a vassal of the Democratic Party, doing its bidding as a United States Judge. Several members of Congress have suggested his impeachment, but without Democrat votes in favor of impeachment (that will never happen), he remains secure as a princeling on his judicial throne. No matter how insufferable he may seem to the public and to political opponents, he knows his loyalty to the Democratic Party does not go unnoticed by them, and when they are back in power, he will likely be elevated to a higher court.

So how does he retain jurisdiction in a case where the Supreme Court clearly has ruled that his court must relinquish the matter and that all his prior orders in the case are revoked? He attempts to go-around the SCOTUS decision by declaring that even though his prior orders are no longer enforceable, that for a while they had validity, and during that timeframe, the Trump Administration violated them, and for doing so, contempt orders must be invoked.

Boasberg has now determined that he has found probable cause to hold (as yet unnamed) members of the Trump Administration in criminal contempt for not complying with his order to turn flights around and bring back to America some 261 monstrous, murderous thugs that were deported to a maximum security jail in El Salvador.

Boasberg’s new Order acknowledges that SCOTUS determined that he lacked jurisdiction in the case, but said that the Trump administration was nevertheless required to obey his orders because they were properly issued while the case was before him.

“One might … ask how this inquiry into compliance is able to proceed at all given that the Supreme Court vacated the [temporary restraining order] 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,” he wrote.

“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,” Boasberg wrote in his order, adding that, “The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely annul the judgments of the courts of the United States would not just destroy the rights acquired under those judgments; it would make ‘a solemn mockery of ‘the constitution itself.” (Internal citations and quote marks omitted.)

Read Judge Boasberg’s “Memorandum Opinion.”

Boasberg writes, “the Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.” The Trump Administration’s disobedience to Boarsberg’s order to turn the planes around and bring the terrorist thugs back to the United States — Boasberg says they were “spirited out of the United States by the Government before they could vindicate their due-process rights by contesting their removability in a federal court” — “is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies in the order.”

Boasberg’s Order reads like it was written by a person who is so full of himself that any and all disrespect, disobedience, non-submission, or personal embarrassment is an affront to the court and thus to the Constitution. He takes himself mighty righteously, and all in his court must not only respect the rules, procedures, and niceties of courtroom behavior, but must show all deference and respect to him personally. We think he is a minor functionary on the lowest rung of the Federal Court hierarchy, but that he is filled with self-adoration.

Boasberg reinterpreted the Supreme Court’s clear directive to instead mean “that the Constitution flatly prohibits the Government from doing exactly what it did that Saturday, when it secretly loaded people onto planes, kept many of them in the dark about their destination, and raced to spirit them away before they could invoke their due-process rights.” So, amazingly, as he reads a SCOTUS decision divesting him of power over the case, he determines that nevertheless he was correct in everything he did. This leads him to the conclusion that, “As this Opinion will shortly explain at greater length, “the fact that the Supreme Court determined that this Court’s TROs suffered from a venue defect does not affect — let alone moot — the compliance inquiry presently teed up here.”

Again, turning the case into how offended he was by the Defendants’ disrespect for his orders, he wrote that they “deliberately flouted this Court’s written Order and, separately, its oral command that explicitly delineated what compliance entailed.” The Defendants are “Donald J. Trump, et al.” It is widely believed that this political judge intends to hold Trump in contempt as a tool for the Democrats to start an impeachment proceeding. Of course, that would require a majority vote in the House of Representatives, where the Republicans are currently in charge, but the Republican majority is razor-thin, and can be lost if just a few seats change parties.

Unable to accept the Supreme Court’s conclusion that he lacked jurisdiction, Boasberg explains the SCOTUS decision in a tortured manner, and then concludes,”In any event, this Court possessed such jurisdiction.” He then goes on to say that SCOTUS “did not hold that this Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction.” He sounds like a petulant child who cannot accept the authority of his elders.

Finally, calling Trump et al. the “contumacious party,” Boasberg offers them a final “opportunity to purge its contempt,” which he describes as the opportunity “to remedy its violation by voluntarily obeying the court order,” i.e., by returning to American soil the despicable terrorist gang members who invaded the county. “In the event that Defendants do not choose to purge their contempt, the Court will proceed to identify the individual(s) responsible for the contumacious conduct by determining whose ‘specific act or omission’ caused the noncompliance.” The court will require declarations and hearings. After that Boasberg writes, “The next step would be for the Court, pursuant to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, to request that the contempt be prosecuted by an attorney for the government. If the Government ‘declines’ or ‘the interest of justice requires,’ the Court will appoint another attorney to prosecute the contempt.” Boasberg concludes his Order finding “probable cause that Defendants’ actions constitute contempt.”

White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung posted on X, in response to Boasberg’s order, “We plan to seek immediate appellate relief. The President is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country.”

Boasberg, in effect, believes his role as a Federal Judge, is to second guess the Executive Branch on anything and everything that has a constitutional basis, because he is so much better at understanding and applying the Constitution than is the President. Maybe in his eyes, he is. But in no one’s eyes is he the President, and what he is doing is to effectively usurp the role of the Executive Branch because he knows better than they do how to handle anything that has a constitutional angle. But, of course, everything has a constitutional angle, so there is no stopping judges like Boasberg from believing they somehow have the authority to run the government from their judicial benches. We saw this cute cartoon on x.com that pretty well sums up what we think of Boasberg’s antics: