Judge Boasberg’s Deportation Ruling Makes Him Top Trump Target

Chief US District Judge Jeb Boasberg is being singled out by President Donald Trump, his administration and his allies, after he temporarily blocked the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

In less than 24 hours, Boasberg has faced an impeachment call from Trump, the release of an actual article of impeachment, a Justice Department bid to have him reassigned from the deportation case, and resistance from government lawyers to share more information about flights that left the US after his court order.

Boasberg, who was appointed by Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 2011, is a former federal prosecutor. In his role as chief judge—an appointment that’s made by meeting certain requirements set by statute—he’s presided over some grand jury proceedings related to criminal charges filed against Trump.

And while he dodged more controversial cases during the first Trump administration, his initial—and temporary—decisions in this case appeared to be the tipping point for both Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts on impeachment. After Trump called for Boasberg to be impeached, Roberts issued a rare public statement against the use of the tool by parties who disagree with a court ruling.

Longtime Judge

Boasberg previously prosecuted criminal cases in the local DC Superior Court, where George W. Bush later appointed him to serve as a judge.

Among those prosecutions was that of a deaf Gallaudet University student for murdering two classmates, which Boasberg highlighted for the senators considering his district court nomination as one of the most significant cases he had worked on. The defendant “testified and threatened to kill me during my cross-examination of him,” Boasberg wrote in a questionnaire.

Boasberg has served as chief judge in Washington since 2023, and presided over some grand jury proceedings related to criminal charges filed against Trump.

US District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper, who has known Boasberg since they attended Yale together, told Reuters in 2023 that he’s “exactly the sort of independent thinker you would want in that position.”

He presided over the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2020 and 2021, considering government requests for secret surveillance warrants. In an unrelated criminal case, in 2021 he sentenced former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith to a year of probation and 400 hours of community service, after the lawyer pleaded guilty to a charge brought by then-Special Counsel John Durham. Clinesmith admitted to altering an email used to obtain a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Boasberg was also assigned a case challenging the Dakota Access Pipeline. In 2020, he ordered that use of the pipeline be halted, finding the US Army Corps of Engineers violated federal law by not conducting an Environmental Impact Statement before granting an easement for it.

The federal appeals court in Washington reversed his shutdown order, and in 2021 he found that American Indian tribes behind the lawsuit hadn’t met the high burden required to halt it again.

On the bench, Boasberg has a genial but straightforward approach. He’s also known as a voracious reader who occasionally makes literary references in his rulings, and is a strong enforcer of a local court rule against “excessive footnotes.”

The former Yale basketball player—listed on the team’s 1984-85 roster as six feet, six inches tall—taught history and coached the varsity girls team at the Horace Mann School before enrolling at Yale Law School. His law school classmates included future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.