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Anti-Trump Judge James Boasberg abused his authority.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
It looks like the judicial lawfare against Team Trump is passing its peak, as feral federal jurists get slapped down and state justices learn they can’t break the law to serve the Resistance.
Wednesday saw the comeuppance of obsessive anti-Trump Judge James Boasberg, the DC Circuit Court judge who’d repeatedly arrogated to himself the authority to overrule the president on national immigration policy.
In March 2025, he issued an emergency order stopping any deportation of illegal immigrants to El Salvador.
Team Trump complied, but a plane bearing some deportees was already out of US airspace before the order came down; it followed instructions and handed them over to El Salvadoran authorities — prompting Boasberg to hurl contempt charges at administration officials with despite the lack of any evidence they’d willfully or improperly defied him.
Indeed, Team Trump is scrupulous in complying with federal court orders — as opposed to the Biden crew, which flouted even the US Supreme Court on both student-loan forgiveness and pandemic-era eviction bans.
Now the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Boasberg overstepped majorly, with Judge Neomi Rao calling out his “a clear abuse of discretion.”
Judicial abuses are even more flagrant at the state-court level: Consider Minnesota Judge Hannah Dugan, who in April 2025 obstructed federal agents trying to detain an illegal immigrant by helping the perp sneak out of her courtroom — though he’d been brought in over a violent assault.
The migrant was chased down and caught before he could do more harm; Dugan was arrested and charged, and then convicted of a felony in December.
In sentencing June 3, she could get up to five years; she deserves every day.
Meanwhile, the Supremes have been clarifying the limits on the lower federal courts.
In Trump v. CASA last June, the high court ruled 6-3 that three district court jurists — John Coughenour in Washington state, Deborah Boardman in Maryland and Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts — had overstepped by issuing emergency nationwide injunctions blocking enforcement of Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship.
That was a stunning blow to the then rapidly-congealing conventional wisdom that lower-court judges’ powers exceed those of the president (at least, when he’s a Republican).
The Boasberg slapdown should re-emphasize that — though it may be appealed to the full DC Circuit, and possibly then to the Supreme Court.
Having the judiciary police itself is far healthier than, e.g., the drive for congressional impeachment proceedings against Boasberg.
In that context, Dugan’s abuse of her power merits a sentence harsher than what a civilian face would for obstructing an officer; that would further drive home the lesson.
Our Constitution grants the president immense powers to execute his chosen policies; judges should never substitute their personal opinions for the law.
And if our courts don’t stick to that, the country’s headed for far bigger trouble.
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