WASHINGTON − In a scorching ruling, a U.S. federal judge found probable cause to hold President Donald Trump‘s administration in contempt for “deliberately and gleefully” violating his order last month halting flights of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under a wartime law.
Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg’s April 16 order is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s standoff with the courts over its deportations of migrants to a prison in El Salvador. Some legal experts worry the courts and Trump administration are careening toward a Constitutional crisis over the case.
The president and his allies have suggested Boasberg be impeached, and cited national security concerns in refusing to provide details to the judge, who noted those same officials published detailed social media videos of the detainees arriving in El Salvador.
In his ruling, Boasberg said the administration demonstrated “willful disregard” for a March 15 order barring the government from deporting Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. He then ordered the administration to closely account for exactly how it had acted.
When Boasberg had issued the order, two planes of Venezuelans were on their way from the United States to El Salvador and had not returned to the United States. He said there was probable cause to find the government in criminal contempt.
“The court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions,” Boasberg wrote in his April 16 ruling. “Defendants provide no convincing reason to avoid the conclusion that appears obvious from the above factual recitation: that they deliberately flouted this court’s written order and, separately, its oral command that explicitly delineated what compliance entailed.”
Boasberg’s findings include details of flight-tracking software, courtroom drama, and social-media posts by Trump. The judge said he had a “growing realization, then, that the government might be rapidly dispatching removal flights in an apparent effort to evade judicial review…”
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously argued that it sent the flights to El Salvador between the time Boasberg issued a verbal and subsequent written order.
Some legal experts say the Trump administration’s decision to ignore Boasberg’s original and follow-on rulings is setting up a Constitutional crisis between the executive and judicial branches. In a rare public statement last month, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump for calling for Boasberg’s impeachment.
Boasberg directly addressed the growing executive-judicial tension concern in his April 16 ruling, noted that administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, seemed to be “deliberately and gleefully” ignoring his orders.
“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,” Boasberg wrote. “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.'”
Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to produce a timeline of the deportation flights, including when they took off, when they crossed into international airspace and where they landed.
He also ordered the administration to report exactly which men were put on the flights under the Alien Enemies Act, and which were removed for other reasons. Acknowledging the national-security concerns raised by Justice Department attorneys, Boasberg said the responses could be filed secretly.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that Trump has the right to remove people from the U.S. under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, but also said those people have the right to challenge their removal. Boasberg’s ruling came in the case of five men transported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison without the opportunity to make their case before a judge.
(This is a developing story.)
Judge finds Trump administration disregarded order on Venezuelan deportations – USA Today
