The Department of Justice (DOJ) moved Friday to block current and former officials from testifying in a probe launched by Judge James Boasberg.
Boasberg, an Obama appointee, plans to hold contempt hearings next week to investigate whether the government willfully violated his March order to turn planes around that were carrying alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Though the Supreme Court vacated Boasberg’s original order blocking deportation because it was filed in the wrong venue, he determined in April that “probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt” for violating it.
In its motion filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the DOJ also asked for the case to be reassigned to another judge “given the strong appearance that [Boasberg] is engaged in a pattern of retaliation and harassment, and has developed too strong a bias to preside over this matter impartially.”
“His latest order threatens attorney-client privilege and the separation of powers underpinning our government — all because this Administration dared to remove Venezuelan Tren de Aragua terrorists from this country,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X. “This radical, retaliatory, unconstitutional campaign against the Trump Administration will not stand.”
Boasberg called for testimony from former DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign.
Reuveni alleged in a whistleblower disclosure that Emil Bove, who formerly was a high-level DOJ offical before being appointed as a federal judge, suggested the department may need to “consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order.” Bove has denied that he advised anyone at the DOJ to violate a court order.
Boasberg has already sought written declarations from several administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
“In short: Absent this Court’s intervention, the district judge plans to compel wide-ranging testimony from government lawyers starting on Monday, with cross examination by opposing counsel who have a partisan interest in attacking the Government and its officials, with no meaningful protections in place to protect privilege despite overt threats to vitiate all such protections, and to do so in service of a putative criminal investigation that the court has no constitutional authority to undertake, and that a judge of this Court has already determined is fundamentally flawed as a matter of law, even though these witnesses have no knowledge relevant to the sole question that the court seeks ostensibly to investigate,” the government wrote in its filing.
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