Boasberg held there was probable cause to show the government's transfer of immigrants to CECOT without due process was a willful violation of his order.

Cross-posted from “A Federal Judge Is on the Brink of Criminally Prosecuting Trump Officials for Contempt” by @remington@beehaw.org in !politics@beehaw.org

In a thundering opinion on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg announced that he had found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for defiance of his orders. It is “obvious,” Boasberg wrote, that government officials “deliberately flouted” his commands by deporting Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran prison on March 15 under President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. And now they must answer for their unlawful conduct. “The Constitution,” he declared, “does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it.”

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
    461·
    4 days ago

    swiftly identify the officials who violated his orders

    I think this is likely to be the hangup. Everything with this administration is so chaotic and ad-hoc that it might be hard to pin it on a single person or group. If they don’t have beyond-reasonable-doubt certainty that the person they’re holding in contempt is responsible, it’ll probably just get overturned, weakening the bigger Trump v Courts battle.