DOJ Hits Judge in El Salvador Case With Ethics Complaint

The US Justice Department filed an ethics complaint accusing a federal judge in Washington of making “improper” comments about President Donald Trump earlier this year, ratcheting up growing tensions between the executive and judicial branches.

The misconduct claim against US District Chief Judge James Boasberg was announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi on social media Monday night. The complaint isn’t public, but a copy reviewed by Bloomberg News alleged Boasberg expressed concern during a March 11 meeting of judges that the Trump administration would “disregard rulings of federal courts” and trigger “a constitutional crisis.”

“These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary, and we will not stand for that,” Bondi said in a post on X.

James Boasberg in Washington in 2023.

Photographer: Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg

Boasberg is the presiding judge in a high-profile legal fight over Trump’s decision to send alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador. Several days after Boasberg’s reported remarks at the March meeting, he ordered a halt to flights out of the country and later investigated whether US officials defied his ruling and should be held in contempt. That move is being appealed, as is a later decision he made that the migrants imprisoned in El Salvador should get a chance to contest their removal from the US.

A spokesperson for the Washington court declined to comment. Boasberg was confirmed to the federal bench under the Obama administration in 2011 and has served as the court’s chief judge since 2023.

Criticizing Judges

Trump has often criticized judges, including Boasberg. In March, the president called for Boasberg’s impeachment over rulings in the case of the Venezuelan men. In a social media post, Trump, without referring to Boasberg by name, called him “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator.” Hours later, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued an extraordinary statement saying it was “not an appropriate response” to disagreement with judicial rulings.

Ethics complaints against federal judges are normally sent to the chief judge of the appeals court that covers that part of the country, and can be investigated by a panel of other judges. The process is not public, although ethics committee panels can release their findings.

The Justice Department contends Boasberg’s March comments were aimed at “improperly” influencing Roberts and other judges in attendance at the meeting of the Judicial Conference, the US courts’ administrative arm. The administration argued that Boasberg’s subsequent rulings against the government showed Boasberg “acting on his preconceived belief” that officials wouldn’t follow court orders.

The complaint, which was submitted by Bondi’s Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle, accuses Boasberg of “making improper public comments” about Trump, even though Judicial Conference meetings aren’t open to the public or the media. The judge’s remarks were reported earlier this month by The Federalist, a conservative media outlet.

The judiciary’s publicly available summary of the March 11 meeting doesn’t include any reference to Boasberg making comments about the administration.

It’s unusual for the Justice Department to publicly air grievances with individual judges, let alone file formal ethics complaints. The department submitted a complaint in February against another federal judge in Washington criticizing her comments from the bench as she presided over hearings in a challenge to Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military. There hasn’t been a public announcement about the status of that complaint.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth, Elizabeth Wasserman

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