Dishonest Bondi Practices Intimidation Moves Against Federal Judge Boasberg to Uphold Trump's Rule By Menace

... the Department of Justice’s new misconduct complaint against D.C. Chief Judge James Boasberg might take the cake ... Steve Vladeck breaks down in exhaustive detail, the DOJ is essentially arguing that a federal judge committed “misconduct” by privately expressing concerns to the Chief Justice that the Trump administration might not comply with court orders. Spoiler alert: those concerns turned out to be entirely justified.

The complaint centers on comments Boasberg allegedly made at a March Judicial Conference meeting about “concerns that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts, leading to a constitutional crisis.” And these concerns were not even Boasberg’s own personal feelings. He was expressing what he was hearing from other judges on the court where he sits.

As Vladeck methodically demonstrates, DOJ’s theory collapses under scrutiny for four separate reasons.
First, the comments weren’t public. They were made at a private meeting of the Judicial Conference, and only became known because someone leaked a confidential memo summarizing the meeting. Vladeck nails why this matters:

Suffice it to say, DOJ never explains how a private comment at a private meeting that was made public only because a confidential memorandum memorializing the meeting was leaked could possibly violate Canon 3(A)(6). The best it can offer is the claim that, because the memorandum has become public, the comments they memorialize were illegitimate. But that’s true of anything a federal judge says in private. On that reading, a federal judge would violate Canon 3(A)(6) simply by discussing a pending case with a clerk or colleague—because that discussion might one day be made public.
Under DOJ’s logic, any private conversation a judge has could retroactively become “misconduct” if someone decides to leak it later. That’s not how judicial ethics work. That’s not how anything works.

Second, as noted above, Boasberg wasn’t pushing his own agenda—he was literally doing his job. As the D.C. Circuit’s district judge representative on the Judicial Conference, part of his role is to communicate his colleagues’ concerns to the Chief Justice. Vladeck notes that these appear to be “radical mischaracterizations of what actually happened,” and that Boasberg was simply “relaying concerns raised by his colleagues to the Chief Justice, almost certainly in response to a specific prompt that he do so.”

Third, and this is the kicker, Boasberg’s concerns were completely justified. Despite DOJ’s claim that “the Trump Administration has complied with every court order,” Vladeck points out that this is “quite obviously not true.” [DOJ] were directly flouting judicial orders, and Boasberg himself wrote an opinion back in April (after he’d raised these concerns) finding probable cause that DOJ lawyers and government officials acted in “willful disregard” of a temporary restraining order when human trafficked Venezuelans to a Salvadoran gulag.
Let’s be clear about the timeline: a judge expressed valid private concerns that the government might not follow court orders, the government proceeded to violate court orders (including one from this very judge!), and now DOJ is claiming the judge committed misconduct for… being right?

... fourth, even if none of the above were true, there’s still no violation here. Boasberg didn’t say he was predisposed to rule against the government in specific cases. He didn’t prejudge any particular policies. He raised institutional concerns about governmental compliance with court orders—which is exactly the kind of thing members of the Judicial Conference should be discussing.

Vladeck identifies the real audiences for this charade. It’s not actually about disciplining Boasberg—the complaint is “laughably preposterous” and will ... certainly be dismissed. Instead, it’s about sending a message:

The first audience is other district judges—including those perhaps without the reputation and stature (and backbone) of Chief Judge Boasberg. Even frivolous judicial misconduct complaints come at a cost—especially when they’re filed not by private litigants, but by the U.S. Department of Justice. If the Chief Judge of the D.C. district court can come in for such treatment for doing nothing more than conveying his colleagues’ concerns to the Chief Justice at a meeting at which that’s his job, perhaps other judges will think twice the next time they want to publicly reprimand the government or otherwise say anything ... reflecting comparable concerns about the behavior of the current Department of Justice.

This is straight-up judicial intimidation. File a bogus complaint against one prominent judge to cow the rest into silence. ... all happening against the backdrop of the Trump admin attacking a bunch of judges for daring to try to uphold the Constitution against a government determined to tear down the Constitution.

The second audience, according to Vladeck, is Trump supporters, who get fed misleading headlines about “biased judges” without the context showing how legally frivolous this complaint actually is. Indeed, Vladeck also calls out that this story “leaked” to MAGA mouthpiece, The Federalist, which clearly was given access to the confidential memo that an attendee had written up summarizing what was said that spurred this complaint… but did not publish it, suggesting that if we saw the full memo, in context, it would be clear how it was being misrepresented here ...

Also notable: The Federalist entirely avoided giving the (kinda important!) context that Boasberg was sharing the views he heard from other judges, rather than just expressing his own opinion.
... most galling is Attorney General Bondi’s tweet claiming Boasberg’s comments “have undermined the integrity of the judiciary, and we will not stand for that.”

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/07/doj-files-frivolous-misconduct-complaint-against-judge-for-doing-his-job-and-being-right-about-government-lawlessness/

Three more years of this menaceocracy.