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The complaint stems from remarks Boasberg allegedly made in
March to Chief Justice John Roberts and other federal judges
saying the administration would trigger a constitutional crisis
by disregarding federal court rulings, according to a copy of
the complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
The comments “have undermined the integrity and impartiality of
the judiciary,” the complaint says, adding that the
administration has “always complied with all court orders.”
Boasberg is among several judges who have questioned whether the
administration has complied with their orders.
The meeting took place days before Boasberg issued an order
blocking deportation flights that Trump was carrying out by
invoking wartime authorities from an 18th century law.
The judge's verbal order to turn around planes that were on the
way to El Salvador was ignored. Boasberg has since found
probable cause that the administration committed contempt of
court.
The comments were supposedly made during a meeting of the
Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s governing body. The
remarks were first reported by the conservative website The
Federalist, which said it obtained a memo summarizing the
meeting.
Boasberg, the chief judge in the district court in the nation’s
capital, is a member of the Judicial Conference. Its meetings
are not public.
The complaint calls for an investigation, the reassignment of
the deportations case to another judge while the inquiry is
ongoing and sanctions, including the possible recommendation of
impeachment, if the investigation substantiates the allegations.
Trump himself already has called for Boasberg's impeachment,
which in turn prompted a rare response from Roberts rejecting
the call.
The complaint was filed with Judge Sri Srinivasan, chief judge
of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit.
More than 250 Venezuelans who were deported to a Salvadoran
mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT,
were sent home to Venezuela earlier this month in a deal that
also free 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents who had been
held by Venezuela.
But the lawsuit over the deportations and the administration's
response to Boasberg's order remains in his court.
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