The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has tossed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, after he "attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts" at a March Judicial Conference in 2025, by claiming that the Trump administration was seeking to "disregard rulings of federal courts," and trigger "a constitutional crisis."
The complaint also cites Boasberg's 2025 ruling that blocked the Trump administration's efforts to deport Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador’s CECOT prison under the Alien Enemies Act and sought to remove him from J.G.G. v. Trump, an ACLU-backed lawsuit challenging the mass deportations.
Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit, Jeffrey S. Sutton, originally dismissed the complaint on December 19, though this was only made public this week. He alleged that not only had the federal government failed to provide sufficient evidence of Boasberg's comments, but that they were entirely within the bounds of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
"A recycling of unadorned allegations with no reference to a source does not corroborate them. And a repetition of uncorroborated statements rarely supplies a basis for a valid misconduct complaint," Sutton wrote in his ruling. He then went on to argue that even if he granted that the comments were proven, the Trump administration still has yet to prove they violate the Codes of Judicial Conduct.
The Conference acts as the policymaking body for the judiciary and consists of a diverse body of federal judges, drawn from every geographic region of the country and appointed by several different presidents. The Conference sets policy and provides guidance with respect to all manner of issues facing the judiciary— from budgets and courthouse maintenance to workplace conduct and judicial security and independence.
A key point of the Judicial Conference and the related meetings is to facilitate candid conversations about judicial administration among leaders of the federal judiciary about matters of common concern. In these settings, a judge’s expression of anxiety about executive-branch compliance with judicial orders, whether rightly feared or not, is not so far afield from customary topics at these meetings—judicial independence, judicial security, and inter-branch relations—as to violate the Codes of Judicial Conduct. Confirming the point, the Chief Justice’s 2024 year-end report raised general concerns about threats to judicial independence, security concerns for judges, and respect for court orders throughout American history.
"Left-wing, activist judges have gone totally rogue," a White House official said in response to the dismissal. "They’re undermining the rule of law in service of their own radical agenda. It needs to stop. And the White House fully embraces impeachment efforts."
Judge Boasberg has increasingly become a target for the Trump administration, not only for his actions in this case but also for approving warrants in former special counsel Jack Smith’s 'Arctic Frost' probe, which allowed investigators to seize the phone records of Republican lawmakers. He has since faced articles of impeachment twice, first in March of 2025 for blocking the administration’s deportations, and again in November over his role in Arctic Frost.