Trump DOJ's defiance backfires as judges move to revive contempt case: legal expert

The Trump administration's defiance of federal judges is starting to backfire as a contempt case is revived, according to a legal expert.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote in a Tuesday piece for her Civil Discourse Substack about a long-running fight over the March 2025 deportation of Venezuelan men to El Salvador's CECOT prison.

Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the planes carrying the Venezuelan men to turn back and return the men, but the Trump administration landed the planes and handed the men over anyway, Vance recounted.

Boasberg opened an inquiry into who was responsible and whether anyone in the Trump administration should face criminal contempt charges. Although a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court shut down the inquiry in April, the full appeals court agreed to reconsider the ruling, with oral arguments set for the fall, according to Vance.

"The administration is its own worst enemy in this matter," Vance wrote. "Instead of correcting course after the incident in Judge Boasberg's case, it seemingly doubled down on its animus toward court decisions it disagrees with."

She described a whistleblower complaint filed by a former Department of Justice attorney. The complaint alleged that former DOJ political appointee turned Third Circuit Judge Emil Bove suggested to subordinates that the DOJ would tell courts "f— you," which Vance wrote was "implying that it would ignore court orders."

The Trump administration has pushed back against court decisions that don't go its way so much that "multiple judges have either questioned or declined to apply the longstanding presumption of regularity to this administration's conduct," Vance wrote.

She added that 174 former judges have filed a brief urging the court to let Boasberg continue his inquiry, and that "stronger measures are called for" against the Trump administration because of the erosion of trust.