Justice Department files misconduct complaint against judge in key deportations case

Judge James Boasberg this year found cause to initiate contempt proceedings to determine whether the Trump administration violated court orders.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department filed a complaint Monday alleging misconduct by a federal judge overseeing several cases involving the Trump administration, including a challenge to the legality of deportation flights to El Salvador in March.

The complaint against James Boasberg, the chief U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., which was filed by Attorney General Pam Bondi's chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, alleges that Boasberg made improper comments during a judicial conference in March.

“While there,” Mizelle wrote, “Judge Boasberg attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges by straying from the traditional topics to express his belief that the Trump Administration would 'disregard rulings of federal courts' and trigger 'a constitutional crisis.'"

NBC News hasn’t verified the remarks, which Mizelle said Boasberg made on March 11. The conference wasn’t open to the public.

“Although his comments would be inappropriate even if they had some basis, they were even worse because Judge Boasberg had no basis,” Mizelle added in his five-page letter to Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Circuit of Court of Appeals in Washington.