A federal appeals court judge has dismissed a misconduct complaint filed by the US Justice Department against the judge who presided over a case involving deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The complaint against US District Judge James E. Boasberg was dismissed on 19 December by Jeffrey S. Sutton, chief judge of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals, though the order only became public this weekend.
The complaint arose from remarks Boasberg allegedly made in March 2025 to Chief Justice John Roberts and other judges at a judicial conference, suggesting the Trump administration would trigger a constitutional crisis by disregarding federal court rulings. This came days before Boasberg blocked deportation flights carried out under a wartime authority from an 18th-century law.
In his dismissal order, Judge Sutton noted that the Justice Department had not provided an attachment to substantiate the allegations. “A recycling of unadorned allegations with no reference to a source does not corroborate them,” he wrote. Sutton, appointed by President George W. Bush, also stated that even if Boasberg had made the comments, they would not be “so far afield” from topics discussed at the conference and would not violate ethics rules.
The complaint was initially filed with Judge Sri Srinivasan of the DC Circuit, but he requested Chief Justice Roberts transfer it to another circuit because the same court was still handling appeals in the deportation case. Roberts then transferred it to the 6th Circuit.
