Appeals Court Halts Judge Boasberg’s ‘Turn the Planes Around’ Criminal Contempt Finding

Appeals Court Halts Judge Boasberg’s ‘Turn the Planes Around’ Criminal Contempt Finding

One of the most controversal district court orders, that has become the poster child for overreach by some judges in the lawfare Democrats are waging against the Trump administration, was when Judge James Boasberg in the U.S. District Court in D.C. issued an emergency injunction againt the removal of TdA Venezuelan gang members, including ordering the turning around of planes that already had departed U.S. territory.

The Supreme Court found that venue was not proper in the District of Columbia, and reversed. The Supreme Court vacated Judge Boasberg’s TROs As To Tren de Aragua Under the Alien Enemies Act.

But Judge Boasberg didn’t let up. He then sought to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for handing over custody of the gang members to Salvadoran officials once the planes landed, Judge Finds ‘Probable Cause’ to Hold Trump Admin in Contempt Over Deportation Orders.

But it wasn’t so clear that the government actually violated any order of the court, since the nature of the order was ambiguous as to whether it prevented turning over custody of gang members on planes that had already left the United States.

The D.C. Court of Appeals just reversed Judge Boasberg’s finding of ‘probable cause’ to believe there was a criminal contempt in a decision endorsed by only two of the three judges on the panel:

According to the government, the TRO barred only the removal of class members from United States territory, which had already occurred before the TRO was entered. According to the district court, the TRO barred the removal of class members from United States custody, and the government likely violated it by transferring the class members into Salvadoran custody after the TRO was entered….

In response to these events, the district court issued an order and accompanying opinion finding probable cause that some federal officials willfully violated the TRO. The court offered the government an option to “purge” the putative contempt by asserting custody over the removed individuals or proposing other methods of coming into compliance….

The government appealed the probable-cause order and moved for an emergency stay or a writ of mandamus terminating the criminal-contempt proceedings. The plaintiffs moved to dismiss the appeal. This Court granted an administrative stay pending consideration of these motions. We grant the appellees’ motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949); I.A.M. Nat’l Pension Fund Benefit Plan A v. Cooper Indus., Inc., 789 F.2d 21, 24 (D.C. Cir. 1986). The panel is unanimous on this point.

Judge Katsas and Judge Rao conclude that the government has satisfied the stringent requirements for a writ of mandamus. The Court therefore grants the government’s petition for mandamus and vacates the district court’s probable-cause order. Judge Pillard dissents from the grant of mandamus and the vacatur.

It’s confusing procedurally, the appeals court held that the interlocutory appeal was without jurisdiction but also found on the merits that the contempt findings were clearly improper and that it had the inherent power to reverse that. From Judge Katsas’ concurring opinion:

The district court’s order raises troubling questions about judicial control over core executive functions like the conduct of foreign policy and the prosecution of criminal offenses. And it implicates an unsettled issue whether the judiciary may impose criminal contempt for violating injunctions entered without jurisdiction.

At the end of this dispute lies a much simpler question. By its terms, the TRO prohibited the government from “removing” suspected TdA members. This prohibition could be interpreted in either of two ways. It might have barred the government simply from expelling detainees from United States territory. Or, it might have barred the government from surrendering custody of the detainees to a foreign sovereign. All agree that the government did not violate the TRO under the former view, so the contempt question boils down to a straightforward interpretive dispute over what constituted “removing” within the meaning of the TRO. For purposes of criminal contempt, ambiguities in the underlying injunction must be resolved in favor of the alleged contemnor. At the time of the alleged contempt, just hours after the TRO hearing and before any transcript of it was available, the district court’s minute order could reasonably have been read either way. Thus, the TRO cannot support a criminal-contempt conviction here.

The government has sought review of the probable-cause order by way of appeal and mandamus. There is no basis for interlocutory appellate jurisdiction. Nonetheless, mandamus is appropriate because the government is plainly correct about the merits of the criminal contempt, and our saying so now would prevent long disputes between the Executive and the Judiciary over difficult, contentious issues regarding the courts’ power to control foreign policy or prosecutions, or to impose criminal sanctions for violating injunctions entered without jurisdiction. In circumstances much less fraught than these, courts have reviewed interlocutory orders through mandamus to prevent extended inter-branch conflict.

In other words, the majority found that Judge Boasberg’s contempt finding was so outrageous, that it was within its power to issue “mandamus” to stop it.

MORE TO FOLLOW

Judge Neomi Rao (sure to be on short list of future Trump SCOTUS nominees) was even more blunt:

The district court’s order is a “clear abuse of discretion” that warrants the “drastic and extraordinary remedy” of mandamus. Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 380 (2004) (cleaned up). When an injunction has been vacated, as occurred here, a district court loses the authority to coerce compliance with the order. See Dep’t of Homeland Sec. v. D.V.D., No. 24A1153, 2025 WL 1832186, at *1 (U.S. July 3, 2025) (holding that a district court cannot use a remedial order “to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable”). Punishment through criminal contempt might Ustill be available in these circumstances, but the district court cannot use the threat of such punishment as a backdoor to obtain compliance with a vacated and therefore unenforceable TRO.

The district court’s abuse of the contempt power is especially egregious because contempt proceedings against senior Executive Branch officials carry profound “separation of power[s] overtones” that demand the most “sensitive judicial scrutiny.” In re Att’y Gen. of U.S., 596 F.2d 58, 64 (2d Cir. 1979). Lacking the authority to compel obedience, the district court nonetheless pressured the government to take custody of alleged alien enemies held in El Salvador. This intrusion on the President’s foreign affairs authority “constitute[s] an unwarranted impairment of another branch in the performance of its constitutional duties.” Cheney, 542 U.S. at 390. Because the order exceeds the court’s authority and amounts to a clear abuse of discretion, mandamus is appropriate.

Because of the split on this panel, and the body blow to The Resistance, the DC Circuit may end up taking this en banc for the entire court.

BREAKING: On a 2-1 vote, and after much delay, a D.C. Circuit panels issues an order that would end Chief Judge Boasberg's contempt proceedings in connection with the March 15 flights.

Two Trump appointees, Katsas and Rao, backed the decision. I would expect the full court to… pic.twitter.com/xSLiSVllul

— Chris “Law Dork” Geidner (@chrisgeidner) August 8, 2025

Not only does this vindicate Trump, but it vindicates my decision to expose relevant closed-door statement Judge Boasberg made at Judicial Conference that his D.C. district court colleagues held an anti-Trump bias. https://t.co/pFzBZ3SSnp

— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) August 8, 2025

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