Judge Who Ruled Against Trump Administration Cleared of Justice Dept. Complaint

Trump allies have called for Judge James E. Boasberg to be investigated and impeached after decisions that questioned the administration’s respect for the rule of law.

A high-ranking federal appeals judge dismissed an ethics complaint filed by the Justice Department against Judge James E. Boasberg, whose rulings repeatedly raised questions about the Trump administration’s respect for the rule of law, including regarding the deportation of Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

The seven-page dismissal order found that Chad Mizelle, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, failed to substantiate allegations that Judge Boasberg had violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges with comments he was accused of making at a private meeting of judges. Even if the comments had been substantiated, the order said, there was nothing inappropriate about them.

The order was signed by Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which posted it to its website this weekend. Mr. Mizelle, the Justice Department and Judge Boasberg did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The complaint, which was filed in July, coincided with a broad and ongoing effort by administration officials and their allies to attack the credibility of judges who rule against the Trump administration, and in some cases to call for their impeachment. Judge Boasberg, the chief of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, became a particular focus after he attempted to block the deportations to El Salvador, then attempted to open an inquiry into why planes headed for the prison did not turn around, despite a court order.

Ms. Bondi had trumpeted the complaint against Judge Boasberg on social media, where she claimed that he had “undermined the integrity of the judiciary.”

Mr. Mizelle’s complaint claimed that, during a closed-door meeting with other judges last March, Judge Boasberg had expressed concern that President Trump might disregard court orders, triggering a constitutional crisis. That, the complaint argued, was evidence of bias against the administration and amounted to an attempt by the judge to “improperly influence” his colleagues.

But according to the dismissal from Judge Sutton, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, Mr. Mizelle did not provide evidence that Judge Boasberg had actually made the comments at the heart of his complaint. A footnote in the complaint references an “Attachment A.” That document appears to never have been provided, despite a court’s follow-up request.

“A recycling of unadorned allegations with no reference to a source does not corroborate them,” Judge Sutton found. The order also points out that, even if there were evidence to back up allegations about Judge Boasberg’s comments, “a judge’s expression of anxiety about executive-branch compliance with judicial orders, whether rightly feared or not,” would not have been inappropriate in a private setting.

Other complaints that Mr. Mizelle made about Judge Boasberg’s handling of the El Salvador deportation case, Judge Sutton found, were about the merits of his rulings, to be reviewed through the normal appeals process and not a complaint about judicial misconduct.

The number of federal judges using their rulings to sound the alarm about what they see as the Trump administration’s lack of respect for the law has continued to grow.

A Minnesota judge who clerked for the revered conservative jurist Justice Antonin G. Scalia wrote in an opinion that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had violated nearly 100 court orders during its immigration crackdown in the state.

Another judge has written that immigration authorities are violating the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements in a ruling that slammed “the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas.”

A third judge chose to retire so he could speak more freely about what he called an “existential threat to democracy.”

Administration officials have maintained that it is “activist judges” who are at fault for issuing rulings that they say are motivated by an anti-Trump political agenda.

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