Plaintiffs in the Alien Enemies Act Contempt Proceedings File a Blistering Response

Allison Gill

It’s a long and sordid saga that has led to Thursday’s late night filing by the plaintiffs in the J.G.G. case on Judge Boasberg’s docket. As you know, last March, the DOJ and DHS defied an order given by Judge Boasberg to turn the planes around that had been sent to El Salvador in the middle of the night under the Alien Enemies Act.

Judge Boasberg found probable cause of criminal contempt, which the government appealed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel - two Trump judges and one Biden judge - vacated that contempt finding, with the dissenting judge pointing out that while the two Trump judges agreed to vacate, they did not agree on the reason.

The plaintiffs appealed en banc (to the full panel of the DC Circuit), which left Boasberg’s criminal contempt finding vacated, but mooted the three-judge panel’s finding because of the conflicting reasoning. That returned the issue to Judge Boasberg, who revived contempt proceedings by ordering DOJ to submit declarations from all individuals involved in the decision to defy his order to turn the planes around.

Despite there having been multiple people involved, DOJ submitted three spartan declarations - from Kristi Noem, Acting General Counsel for DHS Joseph Mazzara, and Todd Blanche - that raised more questions than they answered. Judge Boasberg said that they didn’t contain enough information for him to make a determination about whether to refer anyone to DOJ for criminal contempt, and ordered testimony from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign and whistleblower/former DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni. (You’ll recall Reuveni was the guy who was in the meeting when Emil Bove told DOJ/OIL lawyers to tell the court to “fuck off.” He also provided insights into the Eric Adams quid pro quo, and the Abrego case.)

https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/plaintiffs-in-the-alien-enemies-act