A federal judge has found probable cause that the Trump administration acted in contempt of court when officials last month defied his order to turn around two planes carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
The administration’s “willful disobedience of judicial orders” without consequences would make “a solemn mockery” of “the Constitution itself,” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote Wednesday. .
Boasberg faulted the Trump administration for conducting a “hurried removal operation” on March 15 and 16 in the hours after he issued an order blocking the deportations and ordering the men returned to the United States.
“As this Opinion will detail, the Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order,” he wrote.
Boasberg noted that he gave the Trump administration “ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions” yet “none of their responses has been satisfactory.”
While the Supreme Court ultimately vacated his court order, Judge Boasberg concluded that the Trump administration still defied the order during the three weeks it was in effect, even if the order suffered from a “legal defect.”
“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely ‘annul the judgments of the courts of the United States’ would not just ‘destroy the rights acquired under those judgments’; it would make ‘a solemn mockery’ of ‘the constitution itself,'” he wrote.
Boasberg gave the Trump Administration a one-week deadline to file “a declaration explaining the steps they have taken and will take to do so.”
Read the full report on ABC News.
