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The federal judge in contradiction with the White House on his application of immigration and now target of dismissal calls Pushed by President Donald Trump is a named bipartite whose career of three decades in Washington, DC, included cases that favored Trump.
James Boasberg, chief judge of the American district court in the Columbia district since 2023, has attracted Trump’s anger after temporarily blocked administration efforts to lead Migrant deportations by plane During the weekend, in a law rarely used in wartime.
During an interview broadcast on Tuesday on Fox News, Trump mentioned the dismissal of Boasberg, which he despised as a “local judge”. Trump earlier the accusation of Boasberg in An article on social networks And described it as “Radical Left Lunatic, a disturbance maker and an agitator”.
Those who know Boasberg and his file insist that he is anything but.
In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Boasberg as an associate judge of the Superior Court of the Columbia District. In 2011, President Barack Obama selected him to be a judge at the American district district court, and he was confirmed by the Senate during a 96-0 vote.
A Washington lawyer who frequently appeared before Boasberg, 62, called him a “extremely conscientious” judge who was “very at the bottom of the center” and is committed to doing things.
“He is known among the lawyers and his colleagues as a brilliant judge,” said the lawyer, speaking anonymously to avoid being considered a panding to the judge.
Boasberg had initially crossed the Trump administration The expulsion of five Venezuelan nationals in the United States accused of being gang members. While Trump cited a 18th century law known as extraterrestrial enemies act As the basis of action, the federal government did not comply with the order of Boasberg to temporarily stop such flights or run flights, trigger a tense audience Monday between the judge and the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice.
“It’s a big stretch, I think,” said Boasberg about the government’s non-compliance with its verbal orders demanding that expulsion flights return to the United States
The comments of Trump’s dismissal led the chief judge John Roberts to publish a Rare reprimand on Tuesday calls to loosen judges Under the decisions with which a president may disagree and said that the targeting of individual judges for his decisions was dangerous for the judicial system and the rule of law.
On Wednesday, a request for comments sent to the rooms of Boasberg on the Trump call was not immediately returned.
Like most federal judges of Washington, Boasberg has dealt with a certain number of cases of January 6 and has often affected lighter sentences than those requested by prosecutors of the Ministry of Justice. In a case, Boasberg condemned a riot of January 6 who brought a Confederate flag to the Capitol And wore a cap “I ❤️ Trump” before attacking the officers with a chemical spray at 2 and a half years in federal prison, a complete decade than what the prosecutors had sought.
In his time on the bench, Boasberg also rejected the lies that led the attack on January 6, 2021.
After supervising a trial in which a riot of January 6 who attacked the law enforcement agents represented himself, Boasberg said that he had agreed that politicians who falsely claimed that the election had been stolen should be “shame of themselvesAnd the defendant should have been “more insightful and thoughtful” on the lies he heard.
“You are too intelligent for having been fooled by the lies on the elections,” Boasberg told the accused.
In a separate case, Boasberg said that the assertions that the elections were stolen were probably false and that an honest belief in the idea did not apologize.
“Our company changes its leaders according to what is happening in the polls, not because of a crowd,” he said.
Boasberg has also manipulated The case against a Trump supporter named Ray EppsWho was at the center of an unsurprised right -of -right conspiracy theory which argued that he was an informant of the FBI. While the government asked for six months in prison for EPPS, Boasberg finally sentenced him to probation, saying that the EPP had been “Vilified in a unique case to defendants of January 6“And that the collateral consequences on the life of EPPS were important. He said that EPPS was the only defendant of January 6” who suffered for what you did not do. “”
Boasberg also supervised the federal investigation into the great jury on the most famous defendant of January 6: Donald Trump.
In March 2023, Boasberg heard arguments with closed doors Lawyers from Trump and former vice-president Mike Pence on the testimony of Pence in the Special Advice Investigation led by Jack Smith. Boasberg Pence ordered to testify in the investigation, and Pence appeared before the great federal jury in April 2023.
Boasberg, who goes by Jeb, is from the national capital and obtained a History Diploma of Yale, where he was a forward in the basketball team. At 6 feet 6 inches, his imposing presence postponed the courtroom, where he worked as a litigant in San Francisco before returning to Washington in the mid -1990s, specializing in prosecution against homicides in the American prosecutor’s office for the Columbia district.
During the official Boasberg investiture ceremony, the pupil to a federal judge, he sat next to Brett Kavanaugh, his close friend and roommate at the Yale Law School, then a federal judge in the DC circuit. Kavanaugh managed the rites during the ceremony. Seven years later, Trump would select Kavanaugh to replace Judge Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court.
“I sincerely think that Jeb Boasberg is one of the best district judges in the country, certainly one of the best in DC,” said another Washington lawyer who works in a large company and knows Basberg personally. “It is a cautious judge and in the middle of the road. He is not a left -handed.”
In 2016, Boasberg ordered the federal government To examine the publication of 14,900 emails and attachments belonging to the presidential rival of Trump, Hillary Clinton, as part of an investigation into his use of a private messaging server while the Secretary of State. During Trump’s first term, Boasberg ruled in favor of the president when he refused to force the IRS to submit his personal income declarations.
Over the years, Boasberg has acquired a reputation as a fair lawyer who likes to sprinkle his written opinions with references of pop culture.
In a trial linked to January 6 against a Trump assistant, Boasberg wrote: “The applicant can withstand this conclusion, but as Dr. Spock of Star Trek has entered it,” the resistance is futile “.”
In a 2022 Decision In which Boasberg rejected a prosecution of the Ministry of Justice who asked for the Casino Magnat de Las Vegas, Steve Wynn, to register as a foreign agent of the Chinese government, the judge included the words of the fogs, “ready or not, here I come, you cannot hide.”
He even played as a prosecutor In a 2018 simulated trial of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” which was supervised by Kennedy and presented by Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington.
Meanwhile, his career in Washington continued to flourish. In 2020, Roberts appointed him the judge president of the foreign intelligence supervisory court, which approved surveillance mandates.
In 2023, he became the chief judge of the Washington district court. Before he was appointed chief judge, he criticized Trump’s allies on what they believed to be the Clemented condder of an FBI lawyer In the government’s survey on Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
Beryl Howell, the predecessor of Boasberg as a chief judge, said to the New York Times In 2023, she was convinced that he could manage public control.
“Judge Boasberg has the seasoning on the bench, legal expertise and the ability to manage and juggle several questions that make him very well suited to be the next chief judge,” said Howell.
A lawyer who knows Boasberg personally and professionally for many years and asked not to be appointed for fear of harassment said that his decisions speak for themselves.
“He is not a supporter in any sense of the word,” said the lawyer. “He will do what he believes that the law requires without fear or favor.”
“There are people who were supposed to do certain jobs,” added the lawyer. “He was supposed to be a judge.”