A federal appeals court judge quietly dismissed a judicial misconduct complaint the Justice Department filed against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, dealing a setback to the Trump administration’s effort to challenge one of its most prominent judicial critics in the fight over deportations to El Salvador.
The complaint was rejected on Dec. 19, 2025, by Jeffrey Sutton, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, although the order did not become public until this weekend. Sutton concluded that the DOJ failed to back up its allegations with evidence and fell well short of the standard required for a misconduct finding, according to a seven-page decision.
The complaint centered on James Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., who repeatedly clashed with President Donald Trump’s administration last year over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants to a high-security prison in El Salvador.
The DOJ’s complaint accused Boasberg of making improper remarks during a closed-door judicial conference in March 2025. According to the filing, Boasberg warned Chief Justice John Roberts and other federal judges that the Trump administration risked provoking a constitutional crisis by disregarding court orders. The meeting occurred just days before Boasberg issued an order blocking deportation flights the administration was carrying out under the centuries-old wartime law.
Sutton said the department never produced the evidence it claimed supported that allegation. Although the complaint referenced an attachment purporting to document Boasberg’s comments, no such material was provided, and the Justice Department did not supply it, even after being contacted by the court.
“In the absence of the attachment, the complaint offers no source for what, if anything, the subject judge said,” Sutton wrote, adding that the filing failed to establish the context, timing, or precise substance of the alleged remarks.
The complaint also leaned on media coverage discussing the accusation, but Sutton dismissed that as insufficient. “A recycling of unadorned allegations with no reference to a source does not corroborate them,” he wrote, noting that repetition alone does not convert speculation into proof.
Even assuming Boasberg made the comments attributed to him, Sutton said, they would not amount to misconduct. He emphasized that judicial conferences are designed to foster “candid conversations” among judges about institutional concerns, including judicial independence and respect for court rulings. Expressions of anxiety about executive compliance, Sutton concluded, fall squarely within the range of permissible topics at such meetings.
The complaint was initially submitted to Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Because that court was already handling appeals tied to Boasberg’s deportation rulings, Srinivasan asked Roberts to move the matter to another circuit. Roberts reassigned it to the 6th Circuit’s Judicial Council, which Sutton leads.
DOJ FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST JUDGE BOASBERG FOR UNDERMINING ‘INTEGRITY’ OF JUDICIARY
Boasberg became a focal point of Republican anger last year after ordering the Trump administration to halt and reverse deportation flights bound for El Salvador in March. He later found probable cause to believe that administration officials acted in criminal contempt by ignoring his directive, accusing the government of showing a “willful disregard” for the court’s authority. Trump and some GOP lawmakers openly floated impeachment, though no serious effort has yet advanced.
The DOJ has also pursued a separate misconduct complaint against Ana Reyes, another judge on the same court, over her handling of litigation challenging Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. The Supreme Court has since allowed that policy to take effect while the case continues.
