Judge wants whistleblower to testify in contempt probe of Trump official over planes to El Salvador

A federal judge investigating potential contempt charges against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has escalated the inquiry by ordering testimony from a whistleblower and a senior Justice Department official in the migrant deportation dispute that has created an unusual confrontation between government branches.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has directed the government to produce Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign for testimony on December 16. The judge also wants to hear from Erez Reuveni, a fired Justice Department attorney, one day earlier.

The case centers on flights carrying Venezuelan migrants that departed for El Salvador in March despite Boasberg’s order to return them to the United States. This incident has sparked a rare judicial inquiry into whether administration officials willfully ignored a court order.

Reuveni has since filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that a Justice Department official suggested the Trump administration might need to disregard court orders in its effort to deport Venezuelan migrants accused of gang affiliations. The administration has firmly denied these allegations.

According to Justice Department statements, Ensign was responsible for conveying both Boasberg’s verbal and subsequent written orders to the Department of Homeland Security. How these orders were interpreted and acted upon lies at the heart of the dispute.

In a written declaration submitted to the court last Friday, Secretary Noem stated she decided against returning the planes to the U.S. after receiving “privileged legal advice” from the Homeland Security Department’s acting general counsel and “through him from the senior leadership of the Department of Justice.”

Boasberg, an Obama appointee, described Noem’s declaration as “cursory” and insufficient to determine whether her actions constituted willful violation of his order. “The Court cannot at this juncture find probable cause that her actions constituted criminal contempt,” the judge wrote in Monday’s order, suggesting he needs more information before making that determination.

The administration maintains it didn’t violate Boasberg’s order, arguing that while the judge verbally directed the planes to return in court, this specific instruction wasn’t included in his written order. The written directive blocked the administration from removing “any of the individual Plaintiffs from the United States for 14 days,” but government attorneys contend this didn’t apply to flights already airborne.

Justice Department lawyers have argued that since the two planes had already departed U.S. territory and airspace, the migrants aboard had already been “removed” and therefore fell outside the scope of the court’s order. This technical interpretation of what constitutes “removal” represents a crucial legal distinction in the administration’s defense.

In a filing last Friday, Justice Department attorneys objected to any “live testimony” in the case, urging Judge Boasberg to proceed directly to a criminal contempt referral if he believed his order was “sufficiently clear in imposing an obligation to halt the transfer of custody for detainees who had already been removed from the United States.”

The dispute highlights the tensions between immigration enforcement priorities of the current administration and the judiciary’s role in ensuring government compliance with legal constraints. It also raises important questions about executive branch obligations when receiving court orders affecting operations already in progress.

This unusual legal confrontation occurs against the backdrop of heightened immigration enforcement actions by the administration, which has made stricter border policies a cornerstone of its agenda. The outcome could establish important precedents regarding the judiciary’s authority to intervene in immigration enforcement actions and the executive branch’s obligation to comply with court orders, even when they conflict with policy priorities.