An appeals court has formally rebuked James Boasberg, the district court judge who infamously ordered President Trump to turn around deportation flights.
In a 2-1 decision, the court reversed the Obama appointee's finding that the Trump administration acted in criminal contempt when it ignored his far-reaching attempt to micromanage immigration policy - an effort the appeals court called "troubling" in its implications.
The ruling is a significant victory for Trump in his battle with "activist" judges who have sought to override his authority.
To many on the right, Boasberg became the face of a judicial tyranny when he ordered Trump to reverse deportation flights to El Salvador that were already in progress under the Alien Enemies Act.
The Trump administration ignored the extraordinary demand, and the Supreme Court later overturned Boasberg's original order blocking Trump's flights.
Still, Boasberg launched contempt proceedings to punish what he called a "solemn mockery" of the Constitution's separation of powers.
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Appeals Court took a sharply different view of the matter and threw out Boasberg's finding of "probable cause."
Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both Trump appointees, said Boasberg overreached by using threats of criminal prosecution to exercise pressure on the administration's conduct of foreign policy.
"The order forces a coequal branch to choose between capitulating to an unlawful judicial order and subjecting its officials to a dubious prosecution," Rao said.
Boasberg's intervention in the case "raises troubling questions about judicial control over core executive functions" like immigration and the prosecution of criminal offenses, said Katsas, who also noted that Boasberg's order was unclear, making it impossible to say whether the administration defied it willfully.
Rao and Katsas also noted that Boasberg's contempt threats came after the Supreme Court tossed his original order blocking flights. Beyond that point, he "no longer had authority to coerce compliance," Rao said.
"The attempt to do so with the threat of criminal contempt was both unlawful and a clear abuse of discretion, particularly because the coercion was directed at the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs," she wrote.
Dissenting, Obama appointee Cornelia Pillard echoed Boasberg's warning about ignoring court orders.
“Our system of courts cannot long endure if disappointed litigants defy court orders with impunity rather than legally challenge them. That is why willful disobedience of a court order is punishable as criminal contempt," she wrote.
