Judge James Boasberg rebuked again

OPINION:

Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg is now 0-2 in his unlawful attempts to sabotage President Trump’s immigration agenda. Appointed by President Obama, this federal magistrate just happens to be “randomly” assigned Washington’s highest-profile cases.

Perhaps that should change after the chastisement handed down Friday by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Boasberg was not happy when he learned the administration had rounded up Tren de Aragua gang members illegally present in the United States.

By the time he had a chance to insert himself, the trespassers were being shipped back to Central America. He ordered the government to “turn the planes around” while they were over international waters.

In April, his honor suffered the indignity of a Supreme Court rebuke on this point. Without delving into the absurdity of directing air traffic from a courtroom, the justices concluded this inferior magistrate had no right to weigh in at all.

An honest jurist would have accepted the admonishment and moved on to another case. Not this one. Intervention from above only steeled this black-robed partisan’s resolve. He devised a new stratagem to oblige the Justice Department to restore the immigration policies of Presidents Biden and Obama.

Judge Boasberg said he would levy criminal penalties on the administration lawyers who purportedly disobeyed his “turn the planes around” edict that he had no business issuing in the first place. The attorneys could avoid jail time only if they “cured” their fault by returning the violent thugs to U.S. soil.

Appellate Judge Neomi Rao was scathing in her evaluation of this plot: “Lacking the power to coerce the government, the district court nonetheless sought to achieve the same result with the threat of criminal contempt. Dangling this sword of Damocles to compel the Executive to exercise its foreign affairs powers exceeds the court’s authority and is an abuse of discretion.”

Judge Boasberg is no stranger to such abuses. As head of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 2014 to 2021, he presided over the unprecedented issuance of warrants to spy on Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.

Had he approached his duty with gravity and impartiality, he would have seen through the wafer-thin evidence proffered to justify the claim that Mr. Trump’s staff were agents of foreign powers. The applications submitted by the FBI were based entirely on lies supplied by the Steele dossier, and the bureau had never corroborated a single of its salacious tales.

One would think a higher standard would apply to meddling in affairs that could affect the outcome of an election. In Judge Boasberg’s courtroom, no proof is needed as long as it serves the Democratic Party’s cause.

Last month, the Justice Department sought sanctions against Judge Boasberg over his remarks to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. during a meeting of the Judicial Conference in March. At this organizational event, the judge urged the assembled magistrates to do something about the administration’s “disregard [for] rulings of federal courts.”

Justice Department Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle explained: “These comments to the Chief Justice and other federal judges in a public setting undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, in violation of [the rules of conduct].”

As the judiciary rarely punishes its own wayward members, the complaint is likely to go nowhere. It’s the job of Congress to set the boundaries for what the courts can do.

The judiciary’s credibility will continue to suffer until elected lawmakers set reliable restraints to thwart Judge Boasberg’s next intrigue.