BREAKING: Judge Starts Criminal Contempt Proceedings Against Trump Admin

[ancianita]

Federal Judge James Boasberg said he’d found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court for showing “a willful disregard” toward his March 15 orders requiring it return to the U.S. the hundreds of Venezuelan migrants it sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador using an 18th-century wartime law. Marc Elias explains what happens now.

[regnaD kciN]

1. Unfortunately, it needs to be civil contempt, not criminal...

…or else Trump will simply pardon everyone charged.

[ancianita]

3. Weissman clarifies...contempt for a judicial order means a special prosecutor to independently prosecute the matter.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/132269997

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Judge Boasberg to launch contempt proceedings for Trump administration

This opinion will be fun reading
https://bsky.app/profile/washingtonpost.com/post/3lmwysj6gvc2c

Breaking news: Judge James E. Boasberg on Wednesday said he would launch proceedings to determine whether to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for defying his order not to remove Venezuelan migrants from the country.

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/16/boasberg-trump-contempt-deportations-alien-enemies-planes/

Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday said he would launch proceedings to determine whether to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for defying his order not to remove Venezuelan migrants from the country based on the wartime Alien Enemies Act.

Boasberg’s order is the latest development in a broader showdown between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary, which has blocked or slowed many of the White House’s far-reaching actions. The Supreme Court ruled this month that the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in the wrong venue, taking the central legal issues of the case away from Boasberg.

Still, Boasberg moved forward with the contempt proceedings, saying that the Trump administration’s actions on March 15, as the removal flights proceeded despite his order to the contrary, “demonstrate a willful disregard … sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”,,,,,

Trump officials have refused to provide Boasberg with detailed explanations of the timing of the deportation flights, first arguing that his order to return the planes lacked full judicial weight because it was verbal, not in writing, and then saying the order did not need to be enforced once the planes were out of U.S. airspace.

The government later invoked the state secrets privilege to avoid giving additional information to Boasberg, saying that doing so would jeopardize national security. Boasberg has been skeptical of that assertion, noting that he has frequently presided over cases involving sensitive national security information and that any such information could be presented under seal.

In court, the judge grilled a Justice Department lawyer for answers, his eyebrows raised and eyes wide as he suggested that government officials had acted in “bad faith” and intentionally rushed to load migrants onto planes and flown them out of the country before he could order them to stop.

[ancianita]

4. Thank you, LMPV. Much appreciated.