The Trump administration is now facing possible criminal prosecution for ignoring a court order to immediately turn around deportation planes covertly bound for El Salvador last month, with a federal judge concluding that government officials “acted contemptuously.”
D.C. Chief Judge James Boasberg on Wednesday found probable cause that President Donald Trump’s officials committed criminal contempt. He also gave the White House a possible narrow way out: Get the hundreds of migrants who were rapidly sent to a Salvadoran prison back into U.S. custody, a measure that would offer those Venezuelan and Salvadoran migrants who were living in the United States an opportunity to legally challenge their removals.
If federal agents refuse, Boasberg said he would subject government officials to questioning under oath. And in what would be a historic turn, the federal judge indicated he is even ready to assign a special prosecutor if the Trump-controlled Department of Justice won’t criminally investigate itself.