Cross-posted from “A Federal Judge Is on the Brink of Criminally Prosecuting Trump Officials for Contempt” by @[email protected] in [email protected]

In a thundering opinion on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg announced that he had found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for defiance of his orders. It is “obvious,” Boasberg wrote, that government officials “deliberately flouted” his commands by deporting Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran prison on March 15 under President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. And now they must answer for their unlawful conduct. “The Constitution,” he declared, “does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it.”

  • @[email protected]
    0•12 days ago

    swiftly identify the officials who violated his orders

    I think this is likely to be the hangup. Everything with this administration is so chaotic and ad-hoc that it might be hard to pin it on a single person or group. If they don’t have beyond-reasonable-doubt certainty that the person they’re holding in contempt is responsible, it’ll probably just get overturned, weakening the bigger Trump v Courts battle.

      • @[email protected]
        0•12 days ago

        Pretty much this is what I’m worried about. Hopefully the government record keeping laws are robust enough that they can eke out a real answer about responsibility by threatening additional charges over failure to document those.

        • oozynozh
          0•12 days ago

          assuming they weren’t sent via self-destructing Signal messages, which itself is a violation of records law

        • Maeve
          0•12 days ago

          Money was exchanged for humans human resources, in illegal activity.

    • Admiral PatrickOPEnglish
      0•12 days ago

      You’re probably not wrong, but hopefully there’s at least a paper trail the judge can work his way up.

      • @[email protected]
        0•10 days ago

        If any paper trail exists, the government will deny it exists, while concurrently setting fire to it and any other evidence they might have left.