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Appeals Court Took Judge Boasberg to the Cleaners Today

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  April 14, 2026 3:45 PM

Judge James Boasberg’s fight with President Donald Trump took a serious hit when a federal appeals court made it clear that his contempt motion must stop. The DC Court of Appeals also called out Boasberg for overreaching—remember, this is legal language. I wish there had been a Scott Jennings-like slap down for this, as Boasberg has been one of the most irritating judges who doesn’t seem to know his role. He’s upset the Trump administration for ignoring his absurd order to stop a deportation flight (via Associated Press):

A federal judge must end his “intrusive” contempt investigation of the Trump administration for failing to comply with an order turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador last year, a divided appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.

Chief Judge James Boasberg abused his discretion in forging ahead with criminal contempt proceedings over the March 2025 deportation flights, according to the majority opinion by a three-judge panel from U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

President Donald Trump’s administration has a “clear and indisputable” right to the termination of the contempt proceedings, Circuit Judge Neomi Rao wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

“The legal error at the heart of these criminal contempt proceedings demonstrates why further investigation by the district court is an abuse of discretion,” Rao wrote. “Criminal contempt is available only for the violation of an order that is clear and specific. (Boasberg’s March 2025 order) did not clearly and specifically bar the government from transferring plaintiffs into Salvadoran custody.”

The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland summarized it nicely: Boasberg got spanked.

Our friends at RedState provided the red meat of the opinion against Boasberg:

The Supreme Court vacated the district court’s order because it was premised on a legal error and the plaintiffs’ suit was brought in the wrong court. Nonetheless, the district court threatened to hold government officials in criminal contempt unless they complied with the now-vacated order by, for instance, taking back custody of the plaintiffs. We issued a writ of mandamus vacating the court’s first contempt order. 

Undeterred, the district court is proceeding with criminal contempt for the government’s decision to transfer the plaintiffs to the custody of El Salvador. To cooperate, the government identified then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as the official responsible for the transfer decision. The district court previously said this was the only information it required to make a referral for prosecution. But the district court has now expanded its inquest and ordered hearings to extract more information from government counsel about exactly what happened last March. The government petitions for mandamus.

The widening gyre of the district court’s investigation again calls for the extraordinary remedy of mandamus to halt the judicial “impairment of another branch in the performance of its constitutional duties.” Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 390 (2004) (cleaned up). The district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy. These proceedings are a clear abuse of discretion, as the district court’s order said nothing about transferring custody of the plaintiffs and therefore lacks the clarity to support criminal contempt based on the transfer of custody. Moreover, the government has already provided the name of the responsible official, so further judicial investigation is unnecessary and therefore improper. In these circumstances, mandamus is appropriate to prevent the district court from assuming an antagonistic jurisdiction that encroaches on the autonomy of the Executive Branch.

Here’s a piping hot cup of STFU, Jimmy.