{"id":18538,"date":"2026-02-02T10:20:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T10:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/dojs-misconduct-complaint-dismissed-against-judge-in-alien-enemies-act-case\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T10:20:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T10:20:31","slug":"dojs-misconduct-complaint-dismissed-against-judge-in-alien-enemies-act-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/dojs-misconduct-complaint-dismissed-against-judge-in-alien-enemies-act-case\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ\u2019s misconduct complaint dismissed against judge in Alien Enemies Act case"},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-01T12:28:28-05:00\">Feb. 1, 2026, 12:28 PM EST<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>A federal judge dismissed a misconduct complaint filed by the Department of Justice against Chief U.S. District Judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/deadline-white-house\/deadline-legal-blog\/trump-cecot-el-salvador-venezuela-boasberg-ruling\">James E. Boasberg<\/a>who oversaw a case related to the Alien Enemies Act case last year.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/26033573-dojboasbergcomp072825\/\">complaint<\/a>filed by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AGPamBondi\/status\/1949974166205034753\">Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a>&lsquo;s office in July 2025, alleged that Boasberg, an Obama appointee, made &ldquo;improper public comments&rdquo; about President Donald Trump to Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and other federal judges &ldquo;that have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.&rdquo; The DOJ claimed that Boasberg made the comments at a semiannual judicial conference the previous March, where he warned about how Trump would &ldquo;disregard rulings of federal courts&rdquo; and trigger &ldquo;a constitutional crisis.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Boasberg previously ruled against Trump&rsquo;s use of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/crs-product\/LSB11269\">Alien Enemies Act<\/a> of 1798 to carry out his mass deportation plans. Last March, Boasberg imposed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/2025\/05\/supreme-court-again-bars-trump-from-removing-venezuelan-nationals\/\">restrictions on the federal government<\/a> from removing anyone under the law. Despite Boasberg&rsquo;s order, the Department of Homeland Security removed more than 200 noncitizens from the U.S. to a notorious <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/deadline-white-house\/deadline-legal-blog\/bari-weiss-60-minutes-cecot-prison-judges-abrego\">prison in El Salvador<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Boasberg&rsquo;s efforts to pursue contempt proceedings against administration officials, related to questions about compliance with that order, have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/deadline-white-house\/deadline-legal-blog\/trump-appointees-again-save-trump-officials-from-contempt-inquiry-for-now\">on hold since mid-December<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In his <a href=\"https:\/\/fingfx.thomsonreuters.com\/gfx\/legaldocs\/jnvwkdnrqvw\/boasberg.pdf\">newly released<\/a> dismissal of the misconduct complaint, Jeffrey Sutton, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, said the DOJ failed to provide sufficient evidence of Boasberg&rsquo;s supposedly prejudicial statements and noted that such conversations between judges are normal during this kind of event. Sutton&rsquo;s decision was issued December 19.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;A key point of the Judicial Conference and the related meetings is to facilitate candid conversations about judicial administration among leaders of the federal judiciary about matters of common concern,&rdquo; Sutton wrote. &ldquo;In these settings, a judge&rsquo;s expression of anxiety about executive-branch compliance with judicial orders, whether rightly feared or not, is not so far afield from customary topics at these meetings.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/james-boasberg-misconduct-complaint-dismissed-doj\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 1, 2026, 12:28 PM EST A federal judge dismissed a misconduct complaint filed by the Department of Justice against Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasbergwho oversaw a case related to the Alien Enemies Act case last year. The complaintfiled by Attorney General Pam Bondi&lsquo;s office in July 2025, alleged that Boasberg, an Obama [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}