President Donald Trump had some choice words for the federal judge who ordered his administration to stop deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without court hearings. Trump described James Boasberg as a “Radical Left Lunatic Judge” and called for his removal from the bench.
Now, the administration has made Trump’s attack official.
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The Department of Justice filed a formal complaint Monday that accused Boasberg of violating judicial ethics rules by suggesting the administration would disregard court orders and trigger a constitutional crisis.
His comments “undermined the integrity of the judiciary,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X, “and we will not stand for that.”
The complaint seeks disciplinary action against Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — possibly including impeachment.
The punishment, a Justice Department official wrote in the complaint, should “deter comparable misconduct” by other judges.
Trump’s latest challenge of judiciary
The complaint against Boasberg is the administration’s latest challenge to judges whose rulings have blocked implementation of parts of Trump’s second-term agenda. Earlier this year, the Justice Department accused Judge Ana Reyes, also of the District of Columbia, of misconduct as she conducted hearings on Trump’s executive order banning transgender troops from the U.S. military.
Trump and others in his administration have taken an unusually aggressive stance against the judiciary. In February, Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
The following month, Trump shared an essay on his Truth Social account that suggested judges who obstruct a president’s actions could be guilty of treason — a crime punishable by death.
The administration first went after Boasberg in March, when he ordered the government to turn around planes that were taking alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador. The judge said the Department of Homeland Security was deporting the men without providing due process.
Despite Boasberg’s order, the planes continued to El Salvador, and all the detainees aboard were incarcerated at what is known as the Terrorism Confinement Center.
Boasberg later found probable cause to hold the administration in contempt of court, but an appeals court paused those proceedings.
After Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare public statement that seemed to rebuke the president.
“For more than two centuries,” Roberts said, “it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Sanctions sought against judge
The complaint against Boasberg was signed by Chad Mizelle, the Justice Department’s chief of staff, and submitted to Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Bondi said Mizelle filed the complaint “at my direction.”
Mizelle took issue with comments from Boasberg during a March meeting of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policy-making body of the federal courts. The complaint alleges that Boasberg attempted to “improperly influence” the chief justice and about two dozen other federal judges “by straying from the traditional topics to express his belief that the Trump Administration would ‘disregard rulings of federal courts’ and trigger ‘a constitutional crisis.’”
“Although his comments would be inappropriate even if they had some basis,” Mizelle wrote, “they were even worse because Judge Boasberg had no basis — the Trump administration has always complied with all court orders.”
The comments, Mizelle said, “undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
He asked that Srinivasan appoint a special investigative committee, pull Boasberg from cases involving Trump’s immigration policies and “impose appropriate disciplinary action,” such as a public reprimand or possibly impeachment.
Boasberg has not commented on the complaint. He was appointed to a District of Columbia trial court in 2002 by President George W. Bush and was elevated to the U.S. District Court in 2011 by President Barack Obama.
Impeachments of federal judges are exceedingly rare, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Since 1803, the House of Representatives has voted to impeach 15 judges. Just eight were removed from the bench after convictions in the Senate.
