A federal appeals court panel voted 2-1 Friday to scrap a judge’s probable cause finding to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for disobeying his order to turn around deportation flights ultimately destined for El Salvador.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the administration was entitled to an intervention because U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s efforts to punish administration officials raised immediate concerns.
“The order forces a coequal branch to choose between capitulating to an unlawful judicial order and subjecting its officials to a dubious prosecution,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, who was in the majority.
U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard, an appointee of former President Obama, dissented.
“Even when faced with what reasonably appeared to him to be foot dragging, evasion, and outright disregard for his jurisdiction and his orders, he responded with unfailing composure,” Pillard wrote.
“The majority does an exemplary judge a grave disservice by overstepping its bounds to upend his effort to vindicate the judicial authority that is our shared trust,” she continued.
Boasberg entered the national limelight for being assigned the first lawsuit when Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March to swiftly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious Salvadoran megaprison.
At a hastily convened Saturday hearing that weekend, Boasberg ordered the administration turn around any airborne planes deporting migrants under the rarely invoked statute. The order was later wiped by the Supreme Court.
