Trump pushes back against the judges who rule against him

WASHINGTON — Days after Judge James E. Boasberg ruled against President Donald Trump’s plans to quickly deport alleged members of a Venezuelan criminal gang, the president called for Congress to remove the judge from the bench.

“HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE,” Trump wrote in a social media post about the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Trump has a history of criticizing judges, but he and his administration in his second term have sought to more broadly undermine the third branch of government, lashing out at judges who rule against the president and calling for limits on the power of federal district courts to stymie aggressive executive branch efforts.

Boasberg found there was probable cause that the Trump administration engaged in criminal contempt of court in not complying with a court order to halt the deportation of migrants under a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act.

And in a separate high-profile immigration case, critics say the Trump administration is openly disregarding a Supreme Court ruling that ordered officials to try to return a mistakenly deported immigrant.

Taken together, Trump administration actions have sparked debate about whether the United States is in — or is headed toward — a constitutional crisis, with critics saying the administration is pushing to diminish institutions that can check Trump’s executive power while he engages in authoritarian moves.

“The takeaway is that the Trump administration is pushing the boundaries of what it can get away with. It is very clear that Donald Trump and his enablers would like to be kings,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and constitutional law scholar. “If he pushes and pushes and pushes and nobody pushes back, he can just govern as an authoritarian with nobody else to pay attention to.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill have largely been on board with Trump’s criticism of the district court powers.

The House passed a bill that would curtail the power of federal district judges to issue nationwide injunctions. And House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, urged House appropriators to consider using the fiscal 2026 appropriation process to address the use of nationwide injunctions.

Trump allies in Congress have also filed a series of impeachment resolutions against certain judges who ruled against administration moves.

District court judges have emerged as a bulwark against an array of sweeping efforts from the Trump administration. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, the courts have paused or blocked administration efforts to end birthright citizenship, fire federal probationary employees and freeze funding awarded through two landmark Biden-era laws, among other issues.

Setbacks in court have not appeared to humble public messaging from the administration. Instead, Trump and his allies have sought to brand some judges as political.

Trump, in one social media post in March, wrote: “Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!”

“These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings,” he wrote in the post, adding that the country would be in “very serious trouble” if the Supreme Court did not “fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY.”

In another post a day later, Trump said: “No District Court Judge, or any Judge, can assume the duties of the President of the United States.”

Talk of impeaching judges has caught the attention of the judiciary. In particular, Trump’s call for Boasberg’s impeachment prompted a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a statement sent to reporters. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Even before the initial Boasberg ruling, officials in the Trump administration had been lambasting the judiciary.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote online in March: “Under the precedents now being established by radical rogue judges, a district court in Hawaii could enjoin troop movements in Iraq.”

He added: “Judges have no authority to administer the executive branch. Or to nullify the results of a national election. We either have democracy, or not.”

Billionaire Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has also lambasted judges on social media. In one post in February, Musk wrote: “We are witnessing an attempted coup of American democracy by radical left activists posing as judges!”

Levitt, the constitutional law scholar, pointed to an instance on the campaign trail in which Trump said he would not be a dictator “other than Day 1” of his new administration.

“It’s no longer Day 1, and it’s very clear he wants to govern like a dictator, and that’s not permissible. But it takes people reminding him that’s not permissible,” Levitt said.

Immigration cases

Boasberg found that the government had transferred two planeloads of passengers protected by the temporary restraining order into a Salvadoran megaprison, actions that “demonstrate a willful disregard” for the court.

“The Court does not reach such [a] conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions,” Boasberg said. “None of their responses has been satisfactory.”

Boasberg gave the U.S. government two options: If it chooses to purge its contempt, it must file a legal brief explaining the steps it has taken and will take to fulfill that action. The government has appealed.

Another flashpoint in the rule of law came with the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

In 2019, an immigration judge ordered that Abrego Garcia not be deported to El Salvador because of potential persecution. But in March, U.S. authorities removed him to El Salvador, something the U.S. government has said was an “administrative error.”

A Supreme Court ruling said the administration should “facilitate” his “release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

The case, which caught national attention, prompted Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen to make a trip to El Salvador. The Trump administration posted an image that featured a picture of a meeting between Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia.

“Oh, and by the way, [Van Hollen] — he’s NOT coming back,” the post read.

Van Hollen, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired last month, said he thinks the nation is in a constitutional crisis.

“They are very much flouting the courts as we speak. As the courts have said, facilitating his return means something more than doing nothing. And they are doing nothing. Yes, they’re absolutely in violation of the court orders as we speak,” Van Hollen said.

Asha Rangappa, a senior lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, said the Trump administration is “acting as a quasi-judiciary.”

Rangappa, in a podcast interview, said the constitutional crisis is the defiance of the judicial branch. But it’s “as much Congress’ failure to act in this situation.”

“I think the power to stop this in any systemic way is with Congress,” Rangappa said, adding later that: “It seems very clear to me that if Congress wanted to, they could prohibit the use of funds to send people to El Salvador.”

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—Michael Macagnone contributed to this report.