Judge weighing disciplinary referral for DOJ lawyers in Venezuela deportations case

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By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said on Thursday he may initiate disciplinary proceedings against Justice Department lawyers for their conduct in a lawsuit brought by Venezuelans challenging their removal to a Salvadoran prison in March.

Boasberg, a prominent Washington, D.C., judge who has drawn President Donald Trump’s ire, said during a court hearing that a recent whistleblower complaint had strengthened the argument that Trump administration officials engaged in criminal contempt of court by failing to turn around deportation flights.

Boasberg also raised the prospect of referring Justice Department lawyers to state bar associations, which have the authority to discipline unethical conduct by attorneys.

“I will certainly be assessing whether government counsel’s conduct and veracity to the court warrant a referral to state bars or our grievance committee, which determines lawyers’ fitness to practice in our court,” Boasberg said.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Boasberg has been hearing an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit brought on behalf of alleged Venezuelan gang members removed from the U.S. under a rarely invoked 18th-century law. The detainees in the case were returned to Venezuela last week as part of a prisoner exchange, after spending four months in El Salvador’s CECOT prison.

The migrants’ lawyers have disputed the gang membership claims and said their clients were not given a chance to contest the government’s assertions.

Boasberg said in April that the Trump administration appeared to have acted “in bad faith” when it hurriedly assembled three deportation flights on March 15 at the same time that he was conducting emergency court proceedings to assess the legality of the effort.

In court filings, Justice Department lawyers have disputed that they disobeyed a court order, saying remarks Boasberg made from the bench were not legally binding.

In a 2-1 order, a federal appeals court in April temporarily paused Boasberg’s effort to further investigate whether the Trump administration engaged in criminal contempt.

Boasberg said during Thursday’s hearing that the delay from the appeals court was frustrating for the plaintiffs, and that a whistleblower complaint from Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department attorney who was fired in April, strengthened the case for contempt.

Reuveni described three separate incidents when Justice Department leaders defied court orders related to the deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a post on X, called Reuveni a “disgruntled employee” and a “leaker.”

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe in Washington; Editing by Nia Williams)