Judge Boasberg's ties under scrutiny with Trump allies as legal battles intensify

Federal Judge James Boasberg is facing criticism from President Donald Trump and his allies as the high-profile lawsuits targeting the Trump Administration he presides over increase.

The cases have now put the judge's personal and professional ties under the magnifying glass of the president and his allies. For example, Mike Davis, president of the Article II Project, criticized the judge's ties.

"The Chief Justice handpicked DC Obama Judge Jeb Boasberg to serve on the FISA court (...) The DC federal judges are in a cozy little club, and they protect their own," Davis said in remarks picked up by Fox News.

Davis' stance reflects a slice of US politics. Personalities believe Boasberg's judicial decisions, as well as his close ties to the legal field, show a partisan bias against the president.

After, on March 15, the judge ordered the Trump administration to halt deportations of illegal immigrants under a 1798 wartime authorization, the president called for his ouster on social media:

"I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!" Trump wrote in the post.

The Republican president's position was challenged by Chief Justice John Roberts in a public statement:.

"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose," Roberts said in the statement.

Boasberg's ties

Boasberg was previously appointed to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by Chief Justice John Roberts. As picked up by Fox News, there is information that he roomed with Judge Brett Kavanaugh at Yale.

As chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Boasberg's recent decisions to halt deportations of violent illegal immigrants and oversee cases involving leaks of internal communications have intensified accusations of bias and generated harsh criticism from Trump.

Boasberg is a native of Washington, DC and earned an advanced degree in Modern European History from Oxford University in 1986 and then attended Yale Law School, where he lived with Kavanaugh, according to Fox News reports.

In that connection, it was learned that in 1990 he graduated and clerked at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before joining Keker & Van Nest in San Francisco as a litigation associate from 1991 to 1994.

Later, he worked at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd & Evans in Washington from 1995 to 1996. After his time at the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, he was appointed in 2002 - by George W. Bush - as an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, the local trial court.

Similarly, James Boasberg was appointed to serve a seven-year term on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). This appointment was made by Chief Justice John Roberts.

He served as the court's chief justice from 2020 to 2021 before returning to the DC District Court.

Recent criticisms

One of President Trump's most recent criticisms of Boasberg came this week:

"The Voters want them OUT, and said so in Record Numbers. If it was up to District Judge Boasberg and other Radical Left Judges, nobody would be removed, the President wouldn’t be allowed to do his job, and people’s lives would be devastated all throughout our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" said Trump.

Then, he was criticized after he was assigned to preside over a lawsuit related to the Trump Administration's leaked Signal chat. The president accused him of "appropriating the 'Trump cases' for himself."