WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge gave the Trump administration another day to respond to his demand for detailed information about weekend flights that deported planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members, despite his order to turn the planes around.
The Justice Department has been resisting the judge's questions about those flights for days, arguing in an emergency filing on Wednesday that the court should drop its "grave encroachments" into the authority of the executive branch.
It's the latest development in a legal standoff between the Trump administration and U.S. District Judge James "Jeb" Boasberg, who has temporarily blocked immigration authorities from using wartime powers to quickly deport people.
President Trump and other Republicans have called for the judge's impeachment, part of a series of escalating conflicts between his administration and the judiciary. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has issued his own rare statement in response, writing that "impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreements concerning a judicial decision."
Boasberg has demanded answers from the Justice Department about whether it followed his orders, seeking details about exactly when the planes carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members departed from the U.S., and when they landed, and who was on those planes
The judge ordered the administration to respond under seal, so that the information would be shielded from the public, by noon ET on Wednesday.
Instead, the Justice Department is pushing back. In an emergency filing, department lawyers wrote that the case has "devolved into a picayune dispute over the micromanagement of immaterial factfinding," and warned it could open the door to "unnecessary judicial fishing expeditions."
The Justice Department is evaluating "whether to invoke the state secrets privilege" with regard to the flight details the court is seeking, they said.
Judge Boasberg responded skeptically to those arguments.
In an order later on Wednesday, Boasberg questioned how the court's inquiry could jeopardize state secrets, since the Trump administration itself had already revealed many operational details of the flights.
Nevertheless, Boasberg agreed to grant an additional 24 hours for the Justice Department to consider whether it would invoke the state-secrets privilege, and to explain its reasoning.
The case began after Trump signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used just three times before in U.S. history to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation during wartime or an invasion.
Immigrant advocates sued, arguing that the administration's use of the act during peacetime is illegal, and that only Congress can declare a state of war. On Saturday, Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport anyone under the Alien Enemies Act for 14 days.
The Trump administration has appealed Boasberg's orders in the case, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ordered an expedited briefing schedule.
The Justice Department argued that Boasberg should drop his push for details about the flights since the appeals court could rule quickly on the underlying case.
But Boasberg was not persuaded.
The judge explicitly rejected the notion that he's engaged in a "fishing expedition." Rather, Boasberg is trying to find out if the Trump administration "deliberately flouted" his orders, he wrote — "and, if so, what the consequences should be."
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