司法部对詹姆斯·博阿斯伯格法官提出的司法不当行为指控被驳回


2026年2月2日 / 美国东部时间上午10:22 / CBS新闻

华盛顿—— 联邦上诉法院法官驳回了司法部对美国地区法官詹姆斯·博阿斯伯格提出的司法不当行为指控。特朗普总统曾谴责博阿斯伯格在涉及《外国人敌人法》以及政府迅速将委内瑞拉移民驱逐至萨尔瓦多的法律纠纷处理中存在问题。

在12月的一项裁决中,美国第六巡回上诉法院首席法官杰弗里·萨顿法官批评司法部未能提供“充分证据”证明博阿斯伯格去年3月在法官闭门会议上据称发表的言论——该言论引发了此次司法不当行为指控。

(档案图片) 美国联邦地区法院首席法官詹姆斯·博阿斯伯格,2023年3月16日于华盛顿E.巴雷特·普雷蒂曼联邦法院。卡萝琳·范·豪滕 / 美联社

该指控由时任司法部长帕姆·邦迪的幕僚长查德·米泽尔于去年7月提出。他声称博阿斯伯格在联邦法院决策机构司法会议(Judicial Conference)的会议上对特朗普及其政府发表了“不当公开评论”。

据指控,博阿斯伯格据称表达了对特朗普政府“将无视联邦法院裁决,导致宪法危机”的担忧。司法部的指控还引用了博阿斯伯格对一起案件的处理——特朗普政府利用《外国人敌人法》迅速驱逐据称属于“特伦德阿拉瓜”(Tren de Aragua)团伙的委内瑞拉移民。

萨顿法官指出,司法部在指控中仅指明了所谓言论的一处证据来源及其发生地点,但未包含该来源信息。当华盛顿特区联邦上诉法院联系司法部索要缺失信息时,对方未予提供。

“由于缺少附件,该指控未说明主审法官在会议期间是否发表过相关言论、何时发表、是否回应特定问题、是在会议期间还是其他场合发表,以及这些担忧是他本人还是其他法官提出的。”法官在裁决中写道。

司法部在指控中还提到一段福克斯新闻的视频片段,讨论对博阿斯伯格的指控。萨顿指出,该片段同样未提供其所谓言论的具体细节。

“重复未经证实的指控而不指明来源,无法证实这些说法。而重复未经证实的陈述也很少能构成有效不当行为指控的依据。”他补充道。

萨顿还指出,司法会议的会议目的是促进法官间的“候选人对话”,并表示任何声称博阿斯伯格的言论是公开场合针对待审案件的说法“站不住脚”。

“在这些场合,法官表达对行政部门遵守司法命令的担忧(无论是否合理),并不超出这些会议的常规讨论话题——司法独立性、司法安全和跨部门关系——因此不违反《司法行为准则》。”他最终裁定。

该指控最初提交给华盛顿特区联邦上诉法院首席法官斯里·斯里尼瓦桑。但由于博阿斯伯格的裁决面临上诉挑战,斯里尼瓦桑请求最高法院首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨将此案移交另一上诉法院。罗伯茨随后于12月将此事转交给第六巡回法院司法委员会,如萨顿的裁决所述。

特朗普政府高级官员及特朗普本人曾因博阿斯伯格在去年快速推进的法律纠纷中的裁决而抨击他——争议焦点是总统对《外国人敌人法》的使用以及将委内瑞拉移民未经司法程序迅速驱逐至萨尔瓦多臭名昭著的监狱的做法。

博阿斯伯格曾下令特朗普政府返航两架载有据称团伙成员的飞机(原计划飞往萨尔瓦多),并认定政府未停止驱逐行动。去年4月,他裁定存在“合理理由”认定政府官员因违抗其命令而构成刑事藐视法庭罪,并指出政府表现出“故意无视”其指令。

特朗普和部分国会共和党人曾呼吁弹劾博阿斯伯格,尽管这一可能性极小。司法部同时还对与博阿斯伯格同属一法院的美国地区法官安娜·雷耶斯提起司法不当行为指控,称其在去年2月的听证会上存在“敌意和严重不当行为”。

雷耶斯当时正在审理特朗普政府禁止跨性别者服役的军事政策案,并于去年3月驳回了该政策的执行。最高法院在此期间允许特朗普政府在诉讼持续期间实施禁令。

Judicial misconduct complaint filed by Justice Dept. against Judge James Boasberg is dismissed

February 2, 2026 / 10:22 AM EST / CBS News

Washington — A federal appeals court judge dismissed a judicial misconduct complaint that the Justice Department filed against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, whom President Trump has denounced over his handling of a legal battle involving the Alien Enemies Act and the administration’s swift removals of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.

In a December decision, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, faulted the Justice Department for failing to provide “sufficient evidence” about an alleged statement Boasberg made last March during a closed-door meeting of judges, which sparked the judicial misconduct complaint.

FILE – U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the United States District Court for D.C., at E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, March 16, 2023. Carolyn Van Houten / AP

The complaint was filed last July by Chad Mizelle, then-chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi. He claimed Boasberg made “improper public comments” about Mr. Trump and his administration during the meeting of the Judicial Conference, the policymaking body of the federal courts.

Boasberg allegedly expressed concerns that the Trump administration “would disregard rulings of federal courts, leading to a constitutional crisis.” The Justice Department’s complaint also cited Boasberg’s handling of a case involving Mr. Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelan migrants who were allegedly members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

The department identified in its complaint one source of evidence for Boasberg’s statement and where it was allegedly made, but did not include that source, Sutton said. When the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., reached out to the Justice Department about the missing information, the department didn’t provide it, according to Sutton’s order.

“In the absence of the attachment, the complaint offers no source for what, if anything, the subject judge said during the Conference, when he said it, whether he said it in response to a question, whether he said it during the Conference or at another meeting, and whether he expressed these concerns as his own or as those of other judges,” the judge wrote.

The Justice Department also mentioned in the complaint a Fox News clip discussing the allegations against Boasberg, which Sutton said also did not offer details about his alleged comment.

“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,” he wrote.

Sutton also noted that meetings of the Judicial Conference aim to facilitate “candidate conversations” among judges, and said any claim that Boasberg’s alleged comment was made in public and in reference to a pending case “falls short.”

“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,” he found.

The complaint was initially filed with Judge Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge of the U.S. appeals court in Washington, D.C. But he asked Chief Justice John Roberts to transfer the complaint to another appeals court because of appellate challenges to Boasberg’s rulings. Roberts then transferred the matter to the 6th Circuit’s Judicial Council in December, according to Sutton’s order.

Top administration officials and Mr. Trump himself have attacked Boasberg for his decisions in the fast-moving legal fight over the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act and the summary removal of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison, which played out last year.

Boasberg had ordered the Trump administration to turn around two planes carrying the alleged gang members that was bound for El Salvador and said that the government did not stop the removals. He ruled last April that probable cause existed to find government officials in criminal contempt over their defiance of his decision and said the government demonstrated a “willful disregard” for his order.

Mr. Trump and some Republicans in Congress had called for Boasberg to be impeached, though it’s unlikely that would happen. The Justice Department has also filed a judicial misconduct complaint against U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who sits on the same court as Boasberg, for what it says was “hostile and egregious misconduct” during a hearing last February.

Reyes was presiding over a case involving Mr. Trump’s plan to bar transgender people from serving in the military and blocked enforcement of the policy last March. The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to implement the ban while litigation continues.

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