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.
So a court has told another court to stop looking into court cases (and the people not following court orders) and let people not follow court orders.
So court orders are meaningless.
Not quite. This is a panel decision from two Trump appointees and the respondents have said they will ask the full DC Circuit Court to hear the case. It may be that the initial decision was a lucky draw for Trump and the full circuit will reverse.
Hey America, when is the revolution you needed your guns for?
Last year, before the continuing consolidation of power.
The best time to water a tree was last year. The second best time is now.
Lawlessness
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.
