Judge Boasberg and Trump Justice Department to face off in court as tension mounts in deportation flights fight

A federal judge will come face-to-face with Justice Department attorneys Friday in the wake of President Donald Trump’s call for his impeachment over how the jurist has handled a challenge to Trump’s use of a sweeping wartime authority to quickly deport some noncitizens.

A federal judge will come face-to-face with Justice Department attorneys Friday in the wake of President Donald Trump’s call for his impeachment over how the jurist has handled a challenge to Trump’s use of a sweeping wartime authority to quickly deport some noncitizens. The hearing before US District Judge James Boasberg comes as the he navigates a high-profile showdown with the administration over his orders last weekend that temporarily blocked Trump’s ability to use the Alien Enemies Act – and probes whether the administration immediately flouted those rulings with deportation flights Saturday night. Boasberg, an appointee of former President Barack Obama and the chief judge of the trial-level court in Washington, DC, has become emblematic of the scores of district court judges who have frustrated – even on a temporary basis – Trump’s agenda during the opening months of his second term. Earlier this week, Trump even echoed calls for Boasberg’s impeachment, prompting a rare rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on the threat. Boasberg’s frustration with the department spilled further into open view on Thursday after he lambasted it for giving him “woefully insufficient” information in response to his request for more details about the deportations in question. “The Government again evaded its obligations,” the judge wrote. He went on to criticize DOJ for giving him a sworn statement by an official with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations who “repeated the same general information about the flights” and went on to say that Cabinet secretaries “‘are currently actively considering whether to invoke the state secrets privilege over the other facts requested by the Court’s order.’”