A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered US District Judge James Boasberg to end his efforts to hold Trump administration officials accountable for flouting his orders in a high-stakes immigration case.

The decision comes almost exactly a year after Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal trial-level court in Washington, DC, said in a blockbuster ruling that “probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt” for defying his orders to temporarily halt the deportation of migrants under a powerful wartime authority invoked by Donald Trump.

The Trump administration appealed several times to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals so the contempt proceedings never fully got underway, halting the judge’s work while it considered whether he had the power to move ahead with the inquiry.

  • mkwt@lemmy.world
    10·
    4 hours ago

    This three judge panel has been quasi-overruled by the en banc court on this case and issue once before. So it seems reasonable to think that might happen again.

    There are still a bunch of hurdles to getting close to any kind of real contempt finding, even if that happens. There’s a real argument that the most Boasberg can do with criminal contempt is make a referral to the DOJ for prosecution. And just imagine how much action this DOJ would take on such a referral…

    Edit: apparently this is a different three judge panel than the first, but Judge Rao was randomly assigned to both panels.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
    5·
    3 hours ago

    But now, a pair of Trump appointees on the appellate court has decided to fully stamp out Boasberg’s plans, saying in a sharply worded opinion that his contempt probe represented “a clear abuse” of power given that the administration had previously identified then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the official responsible for deciding to allow the deportations in question to continue.

    Yeah, but, see, Kamala wasn’t a literal Jesus figure so we didn’t vote

  • VeryVito@lemmy.ml
    6·
    4 hours ago

    It’s crazy to think how many people are going to stand trial or self-exile before this is all over.