United States District Court for the District of Columbia via Wikimedia Commons

Federal Judge James E. Boasberg ’85 LAW ’90 has become the target of a coordinated attack from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans after he temporarily blocked the president’s use of a wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants accused of gang affiliations.

The Justice Department escalated the standoff last week, seeking to remove Boasberg from the case and arguing in court filings that he lacked the authority to halt the deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law allowing the president to expel foreign nationals from hostile nations.

Meanwhile, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg earlier this month, accusing him of judicial overreach — an effort President Donald Trump quickly endorsed.

“This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The push for impeachment drew a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who issued a public statement defending judicial independence and warning that impeachment should not be used to retaliate against legal decisions.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts wrote. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Speaking at Yale on Thursday, former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer concurred, saying that when plaintiffs lose a case, they should appeal the decision, not threaten to impeach the judge.

In addition to challenging Boasberg’s authority, the Justice Department has resisted his demand to disclose exact departure times for two deportation flights that left the United States earlier this month. Trump administration officials claim the flights departed before Boasberg’s injunction took effect, but they have refused to provide precise timestamps, citing national security concerns.

“Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said in an oral directive. “However that’s accomplished … I leave to you. But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”

When Boasberg gave this order, two planes had already left South Texas, while the third was still on the ground. The third plane took off minutes later, and all three planes carrying the alleged Venezuelan gang members landed in El Salvador, which had agreed to imprison them.

Lawyers for the Justice Department have argued that Boasberg’s oral ruling — issued at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 22 — carries less legal weight than his written directive, which was formally placed on the docket at 7:25 p.m. By drawing this distinction, they have sought to justify withholding confirmation on whether the deportation flights departed after the judge’s order took effect.

Boasberg, who is now determining whether or not the Justice Department violated his court order, has sharply criticized this rationale, calling it “a heck of a stretch” in court.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court upheld the block that Boasberg imposed on the Trump administration for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport the Venezuelan migrants.

Then, also on Wednesday, another lawsuit against the Trump administration came before Boasberg. In the new case, government watchdog group American Oversight argued that Trump officials — including Vice President JD Vance LAW ’13, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ’84 and Treasury Chief of Staff Dan Katz ’10 — violated the Federal Records Act after Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg exposed war-plan discussions held on Signal. 

“How disgraceful is it that ‘Judge’ James Boasberg has just been given a fourth ‘Trump Case,’ something which is, statistically, IMPOSSIBLE,” Trump posted on Truth Social in response.

On Thursday, Boasberg ruled that the Trump officials who participated in the Signal group chat must “preserve all of the messages they exchanged on the app in the days leading up to [the] strikes” against the Houthis, a U.S.-designated terrorist group in Yemen.

While at Yale, Boasberg majored in history and was initially a member of Davenport College. After his sophomore year, he transferred to Pierson College to room with his closest friends, a decision he called “the smartest move I ever made at Yale.”

Boasberg played as a forward on the varsity basketball team. Although he posted solid offensive numbers, the team struggled, finishing with a 7–19 record and a 4–10 Ivy League record in his junior year, which placed them last in the Ivy League. Boasberg had a free goal percentage of .643, the highest on the team, though his free throw percentage was .448.

Boasberg told the News in 1984 that playing on the basketball team was “the most frustrating, unsuccessful thing [he had] ever done.”

As an undergraduate, Boasberg did not want to be known as just a basketball player. To that end, he performed in three shows through the Children’s Theater. Notably, he debuted as the seventh dwarf in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” despite being a 6’6” basketball player.

In his senior year, Boasberg joined Skull and Bones, Yale’s oldest secret student society. At the same time, Boasberg hoped to be selected as a Rhodes or Marshall Scholar. He was ultimately deferred at the interview round for both, prompting him to independently apply to the University of Oxford, where he was accepted to study European history.

After his time at Oxford, Boasberg returned to study law at Yale Law School, where he lived together with future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90 in the same “run-down New Haven house.” They frequently played basketball together and became close friends.

After law school, Boasberg clerked for Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, before entering private practice. In 1996, he joined the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he worked for five years as a prosecutor.

Then, in 2002, former President George W. Bush ’68, a fellow Skull and Bones member, appointed him to be an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Boasberg was appointed by President Barack Obama to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2011. Three years later, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed him to be a Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a position he held until 2021.

In 2020, Boasberg was appointed Chief Judge of the United States Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Three years later, Boasberg was made Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

That same year, Boasberg returned to Yale to speak at Pierson College. During the event, Boasberg discussed with Yale Law School professor James Forman Jr. LAW ’92 the unprecedented nature of Jan. 6, and the difficulty for prosecutors to determine the specific criteria to charge someone and the number of individuals to be charged. Boasberg, along with nearly twenty other district judges, received 65 cases involving defendants from the Jan. 6 events to oversee.

Judge Boasberg has previously ruled in several cases pertinent to President Trump. 

In 2016, Boasberg ordered the FBI to release nearly 15,000 emails sent by then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton LAW ’73, but dismissed additional lawsuits ordering the State Department to recover additional emails. He also ruled against a group seeking to obtain Trump’s tax returns, asserting that only Congress or Trump held the authority to release them.

The Justice Department was founded in 1870.