WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge who ruled against Donald Trump’s deportation plans and is now facing calls for his impeachment is no stranger to politically…
The federal judge who ruled against Donald Trump’s deportation plans and is now facing calls for his impeachment is no stranger to politically fraught cases — including ones involving the president.
In his 14 years on the federal bench, James “Jeb” Boasberg has resolved secret grand jury disputes that arose during the special counsel investigation into Trump, oversaw improvements after the Trump-Russia investigation in how the Justice Department conducts national security surveillance and handled his share of sentencings for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A former homicide prosecutor in the nation’s capital who played basketball at Yale University, where he also earned his law degree, Boasberg has cultivated a reputation among colleagues as a principled jurist with bipartisan respect — he was appointed to the federal bench in 2011 by President Barack Obama but was named a decade earlier to a seat on the D.C. Superior Court by President George W. Bush.
“Judges should not work from a desired outcome in assessing the law and facts,” Boasberg wrote on a federal judgeship questionnaire in response to questions from then- Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who would later go on to become attorney general.
“Instead,” he wrote, “they should follow the law and facts to whatever outcome they dictate.”
Boasberg’s position gave him a unique window on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump as witness after witness arrived at the courthouse for secret grand jury testimony.
As chief judge, he was called upon to arbitrate closed-doors disputes over the scope of cooperation from witnesses like then-Vice President Mike Pence, who challenged a subpoena from prosecutors that sought to force his cooperation with Smith’s team. Boasberg in 2023 issued a sealed opinion requiring the vice president to testify before the grand jury investigating Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election but also agreed that certain questions could be months later.
