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| Win McNamee / Getty Images ; Drew Angerer - AFP / Getty Images |
U.S District Court Judge James Boasberg was handed a defeat Friday in his bid to slap criminal contempt charges against Trump administration officials he said defied his order to block the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants.
Boasberg had sought to rein in the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans and had threatened criminal contempt charges after finding that officials violated a Temporary Restraining Order he gave that planes heading for El Salvador with criminal illegal immigrants should return to the United States.
The 2-1 ruling of the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the charges in what was dubbed “a massive victory for the Trump administration,” by CBS.
Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term, supported the ruling.
Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, dissented.
Each judge wrote separate opinions. In his, Katsas called the dispute “an extraordinary, ongoing confrontation between the Executive and Judicial Branches.”
He wrote that Boasberg’s actions were designed to “vindicate a TRO that the Supreme Court had vacated for lack of jurisdiction,” using the acronym for a Temporary Restraining Order.
“The district court’s order raises troubling questions about judicial control over core executive functions like the conduct of foreign policy and the prosecution of criminal offenses,” he wrote.
He said the case also concerns “an unsettled issue whether the judiciary may impose criminal contempt for violating injunctions entered without jurisdiction.” --->READ MORE HERE
A panel of federal judges handed President Trump a major victory Friday, overturning a ruling that threatened to hold the administration in contempt over migrant flights to El Salvador earlier this year.
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Chief US District Judge James Boasberg’s April 16 order finding “probable cause” to hold executive branch officials in criminal contempt for allegedly ignoring his March 15 order to stop deportation flights to Central America.
In a split decision, appellate Judge George Katsas — a Trump appointee — said Boasberg’s decision represented an “improper use of the contempt power” since the US Supreme Court had already lifted Boasberg’s ban on the flights before the district judge ordered the feds to “purge their contempt.”
Boasberg — a Barack Obama appointee — ordered Trump administration lawyers to either retake custody of the deported migrants so they could continue fighting their immigration case in the US or identify the officials who had defied his order.
“The government correctly says it has been put to a Hobson’s choice: comply with an invalid order or name Executive Branch officials for the initiation of criminal contempt proceedings,” Katsas wrote. “The proffered choice impermissibly commingles civil and criminal contempt in a manner that results in substantial prejudice to the government.
“Compounding this error, the district court’s order attempts to control the Executive Branch’s conduct of foreign affairs, an area in which a court’s power is at its lowest ebb,” Katsas added. --->READ MORE HERE
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