DOJ lodges formal complaint against judge who criticized Trump
Washington DC - The Department of Justice filed a misconduct complaint against Judge James Boasberg after he made comments accusing President Donald Trump of undermining the judiciary.
"Today at my direction, [the DOJ] filed a misconduct complaint against US District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg for making improper public comments about President Trump," Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X on Monday.
The complaint had been reported by Fox News on Sunday, which claimed that Bondi's Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle had written and filed the complaint.
Boasberg has been one of the primary judges ruling on the Trump administration's brutal deportation of migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
In mid-April, Boasberg said that the Trump administration behaved in "deliberate or reckless disregard" of an order blocking the deportation of 200 migrants to El Salvador without due process.
DOJ claims Trump administration has "always complied with all court orders"
The DOJ's legal complaint points to two occasions in which it believes Boasberg made comments that reflected badly on the Trump administration and eroded "public confidence in judicial neutrality."
Mizelle's filing first accuses Boasberg of trying to "improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges" by expressing his belief that "the Trump Administration would 'disregard rulings of federal courts' and trigger 'a constitutional crisis.'"
According to the DOJ, these comments would be inappropriate "even if they had some basis," but were made worse because the Trump administration has "always complied with all court orders."
Boasberg was then accused of "acting on his preconceived belief that the Trump Administration would not follow court orders."
Neither Boasberg, nor the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, have responded to the allegations.
Cover photo: AFP/Drew Angerer