A MAGA attorney with a penchant for threatening perceived foes of Donald Trump called for House lawmakers to impeach the federal judge who on Monday scolded the Justice Department in a tense hearing over the president's deportation orders.
The contentious hearing followed the Trump administration's decision to ignore Judge James Boasberg's order on Saturday that temporarily paused deportations of Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The judge explicitly ordered the administration to return any planes in the air, but the administration proceeded with the deportations anyway, arguing, among other things, that the flights were over international waters.
The judge delivered multiple slaps on the wrist to the Justice Department, demanding to know "Why are you showing up today and not having answers as to why you can't disclose it?" as well as saying "So when I said directly turn the plane around, you read it because my written order was pithier, this could be disregarded? That's a heck of a stretch."
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In another tense moment, the judge asked, “Isn’t then the better course to return the planes to the United States and figure out what to do, than say, ‘We don’t care; we’ll do what we want’?”
Boasberg has gained MAGA world's ire in recent days.
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) said over the weekend he plans to try to impeach Boasberg for issuing a two-week restraining order against the deportations.
"I’ll be filing Articles of Impeachment against activist judge James Boasberg this week,” Gill wrote in a post on social platform X.
Gill's announcement earned a thumbs-up from tech billionaire Elon Musk, head of Trump's Department of Government Efficency initiative, who described the impeachment effort as "Necessary" on social media.
And on Monday afternoon, Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project with close ties to the Trump administration, called for the same.
"I don't say this lightly. But the time has come: Tell Congress to Impeach DC Obama Judge Jeb Boasberg for Keeping Terrorists in America," he wrote on X, alongside a petition calling for just that.
"The President of the United States correctly designated Tren de Aragua (TdA), a vicious Venezuelan gang, as a foreign-terrorist organization," the petition reads. "The President correctly put these terrorists on planes to get them the hell out of our country. Yet Obama-appointed DC District Judge James Boasberg thinks he has the power to order the President to turn around the planes in mid-air and bring these terrorists back into America."
The petition added: "This is the most dangerous constitutional crisis imaginable. The President has a constitutional duty, as the chief executive officer and commander-in-chief, to ignore Judge Boasberg's lawless and dangerous order. The House must impeach Judge Boasberg for abuse of power. The Senate must convict Judge Boasberg. And the Congress must defund his court."
