by Sharon Rondeau
(Jul. 29, 2025) — On Monday evening U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on X that she asked the Justice Department to file a “misconduct” complaint against U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Chief Judge James E. Boasberg.
In March Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to return illegal-alien criminals from El Salvador and Honduras, where they were deported after the administration found they were members of Tren de Aragua. The group, described as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” in President Trump’s executive order on March 15, “are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”
That activity, Trump said, justified his administration’s invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
A citizen-driven criminal complaint arose over Boasberg’s conduct on the bench regarding the deportations, alleging multiple federal laws were violated.
Bondi’s complaint, in contrast, does not touch upon the judge’s orders or official opinions, but rather, from a memorandum obtained exclusively by The Federalist and reported July 16 in an editorial by law professor Margot Cleveland.
The memo, Cleveland wrote, contained a synopsis of a Judicial Conference meeting which took place in March. “The Judicial Conference convenes twice a year to consider administrative and policy issues affecting the federal court system, and to make recommendations to Congress concerning legislation involving the Judicial Branch,” the Judicial Conference of the United States website states.
The memo is said to state that during a Conference breakfast meeting, “District of the District of Columbia Chief Judge James Boasberg next raised his colleagues’ concerns that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis.”
On April 16, Boasberg found the government to be in contempt of court and scheduled a hearing on the matter, but two days later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the court to which the Justice Department’s complaint was directed on Monday, placed a stay on the hearing.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court determined the Venezuelan plaintiffs in J.G.G. v. Trump in whose favor Boasberg had ruled filed their case in the wrong jurisdiction.
Further, in late June, the high court ruled that “universal injunctions” issued by district court judges cannot affect individuals outside of each judge’s jurisdiction.
The appellate court’s chief jurist, Sri Srinivasan, was nominated by Barack Obama and confirmed in 2013, with then-Chief Judge Merrick Garland swearing him in.
Srinivasan became chief judge of the court in 2020.
“Today at my direction,” Bondi wrote on X Monday evening, “@TheJusticeDept filed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg for making improper public comments about President Trump and his Administration. These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary, and we will not stand for that.”
The five-page complaint, published by Courthouse News, was hand-delivered and addressed to Srinivasan. It begins:
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 351(a) and Rules 5, 11, and 20 of the Rules for Judicial-Conduct and
Judicial-Disability Proceedings, and at the direction of the Attorney General, the Department of
Justice respectfully submits this complaint alleging misconduct by U.S. District Court Chief Judge
James E. Boasberg for making improper public comments about President Donald J. Trump to the
Chief Justice of the United States and other federal judges that have undermined the integrity and
impartiality of the judiciary.
The Justice Department asked the appellate court convene a “special investigative committee” to examine Boasberg’s conduct and to “Order interim corrective measures during the investigation, including reassignment of all related J.G.G. v. Trump cases to another judge to prevent further erosion of
public confidence while the investigation proceeds” (p. 4).
In response to Bondi’s announcement, The Federalist‘s Mollie Hemingway applauded her colleague’s work and its “results.” Cleveland’s article, Hemingway wrote, “led to this complaint.”
