DC appeals court orders Judge Boasberg to halt Trump contempt probe over deportation flights

By Fox News · Fox News

A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to end his contempt inquiry into senior Trump administration officials after they deported more than 130 Venezuelan migrants — capping a protracted and bitterly disputed legal fight. Judges for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Boasberg's inquiry overstepped the court's authority and represented an "unwarranted impairment" of the executive branch. Judges Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, two Trump appointees, authored the majority, which ordered Boasberg, the chief district judge for the District of Columbia, to terminate the contempt inquiry roughly 12 months after it began. At issue was the Trump administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador last March — migrants that the administration alleged were in the U.S. illegally and in some cases had ties to the violent gang Tren de Aragua — and whether senior Trump officials had willfully defied an emergency court order issued by the district court judge in allowing the deportation flights to continue. FEDERAL JUDGE JAMES BOASBERG FINDS PROBABLE CAUSE TO HOLD TRUMP IN CONTEMPT OVER DEPORTATION FLIGHTS Rao and Walker said Tuesday that the March 15 emergency order that Boasberg issued last year, which sought to halt the administration from immediately deporting the Venezuelan migrants, was too ambiguous to justify what they ruled was an "intrusive" investigation into high-level executive matters. "The district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy," Rao and Walker said Tuesday. "These proceedings are a clear abuse of discretion." J. Michelle Childs, a Biden appointee, authored a sharp, 80-page dissent . "Contempt of court is a public offense, and the fate of our democratic republic will depend on whether we treat it as such," she said, adding: "Without the contempt power, the rule of law is…