Notable rulings
On April 26, 2012, Boasberg ruled that the public had no right to view government photos of a deceased Osama bin Laden. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, had filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but was unsuccessful in convincing Boasberg that FOIA rights outweighed national-security factors.
On August 22, 2016, Boasberg ordered the release of over 14,000 emails found in the United States Department of State correspondence of Hillary Clinton by the FBI during an investigation of Clinton's private server. These emails were requested by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, because the FBI had indicated that the emails were work-related and not entirely private, as Clinton had previously said.
On August 18, 2017, Boasberg dismissed a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which had sued the IRS under FOIA seeking President Donald Trump's personal tax returns from 2010 to the present to be released. Boasberg concluded that because personal tax returns are confidential, they may only be obtained either by permission from Trump himself or if Congress' joint committee on taxation signed off to allow the disclosure.
On March 27, 2019, Boasberg blocked a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid in Arkansas and Kentucky.
Boasberg has presided over litigation concerning the Dakota Access Pipeline since 2016.
On March 25, 2020, Boasberg ordered a sweeping new environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
In a subsequent decision on July 6, 2020, he vacated an easement to cross the Missouri River pending completion of the environmental review and ordered the pipeline to be emptied within 30 days. On August 5, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the ruling regarding the easement; however, the judges vacated the order to empty the pipeline and asked the Army Corps of Engineers to submit a follow-up brief on whether they would allow continued pipeline operation without the easement.
On April 9, 2020, Boasberg issued an opinion finding that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it issued a biological opinion in 2014 allowing for the accidental killings of North Atlantic right whales, of which only about 400 remained as of April 8, 2020; by the American lobster fishery, which consists of seven areas spanning the east coast from Maine to North Carolina.
In January 2021, Boasberg sentenced former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith to 12 month's probation and 400 hours community service after Clinesmith pleaded guilty to altering a CIA email used in a FISA renewal application for Carter Page. The case was brought by Special Counsel John Durham. Prosecutors had sought prison time, arguing the alteration caused "immeasurable" harm to public trust. Boasberg, who was also presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, declined, stating Clinesmith "likely believed" the information he inserted was true and was "taking an inappropriate shortcut." Boasberg noted the DOJ Inspector General had found no evidence Clinesmith acted with political bias.
J.G.G. v. Donald J. Trump is a class action and habeas corpus lawsuit filed by five Venezuelan men in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody who were threatened with removal under a proclamation from President Donald Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
On March 15, 2025, Boasberg issued a 14-day restraining order, stating that he did not believe federal law permits the Trump administration to bypass removal proceedings in this manner, noting there is no historical precedent for such deportations when Congress has not made a declaration of war. The administration allowed deportation flights to proceed despite the order.
In April 2025, Boasberg found probable cause that the Trump administration had committed criminal contempt for violating his March 15 orders. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed contempt proceedings in December 2025, and shut down the contempt investigation in April 2026 – calling it, in Judge Neomi Rao's majority opinion, a "judicial intrusion into the autonomy of a coequal department."
On December 22, 2025, Boasberg ruled that 137 men deported under the Alien Enemies Act had been denied due process and ordered the administration to either facilitate their return to the United States or provide hearings by January 5, 2026.
American Oversight v. Hegseth is a pending lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The case, submitted by watchdog group American Oversight, concerns allegations that officials in the Trump administration unlawfully used the encrypted Signal messaging app to discuss sensitive military operations, in violation of federal record-keeping laws. Chief Judge James Boasberg was randomly assigned to the case.
The "Houthi PC small group" chat was a messaging thread involving senior officials of the Trump administration in March 2025, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance. The group discussed operational details related to a U.S. military strike on Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15, 2025.
In November 2025, Boasberg ruled in favor of Meta Platforms in the case of FTC v. Meta, an antitrust lawsuit originally filed against the company in 2020, with Boasberg finding that the Federal Trade Commission did not demonstrate that Meta held a monopoly in social networking.
