pjmedia.com It opens like this: a federal district judge decided he could micromanage deportation flights in real time—then the appellate court yanked the reins and reminded everyone that courts are not mini State Departments. On August 8, 2025, a divided D.C. Circuit panel vacated Judge James Boasberg’s criminal-contempt gambit against Trump officials over the Venezuela-to-El-Salvador deportation flights, a clean 2–1 win for the administration and a sharp curb on trial-court overreach into executive foreign-affairs turf. Read about it here from Reuters and the AP.
Start with the players. In the district court, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg (D-D.C.) presided over J.G.G. v. Trump (No. 25-766), a class action/habeas mash-up brought by Venezuelan detainees swept up under the administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg’s own words are here: his April 16 memorandum finding “probable cause” to pursue criminal contempt against the government for defying his March 15 orders. That document lays out his theory that the executive “willfully disregarded” a TRO and even “boasted” about it. It’s the core of the contempt story, and it’s public.
The appellate panel was Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao in the majority, with Judge Cornelia Pillard dissenting. The majority’s bottom line: no criminal-contempt case here. The order’s contours weren’t “clear and unambiguous” enough to support criminal punishment; the facts were fluid; and the kind of micromanagement Boasberg attempted risked trenching on executive control of international removals and diplomatic coordination. The press read it the same way: Reuters, AP, Axios, and a clear write-up at Courthouse News confirming the 2–1 split and remand mechanics.
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