Appeals court dismisses DOJ misconduct complaint against federal judge

03 Feb 2026 By foxnews

A federal appeals court dismissed a Justice Department misconduct complaint against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, according to court documents revealed this week.

Jeffrey S. Sutton, chief judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, dismissed the complaint on December 19, but news of the ruling only arrived this weekend. The DOJ alleged misconduct on the grounds that Boasberg had made comments at a judicial conference saying the Trump administration would trigger a "constitutional crisis" by disregarding federal court rulings.

His comments at the conference came just days before Boasberg issued an order blocking deportation flights.

Sutton argued that the government had failed to provide evidence of Boasberg's comments or sufficient context surrounding them.

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"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 said in his ruling.

News of the ruling comes days after the White House confirmed its support for the Senate Judiciary Committee's impeachment inquiry involving Boasberg and another judge Republicans have described as an activist.

"Left-wing, activist judges have gone totally rogue," a White House official told Fox News Digital. "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."

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The White House official continued that President Donald Trump must be able to "lawfully implement the agenda the American people elected him on," arguing that judges who repeatedly issue partisan rulings have abused their offices and forfeited their claim to impartiality.

Boasberg has become a prime target for Republicans over a string of rulings tied to Trump-era immigration policies - including cases involving the Trump administration's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act law to deport Venezuelan migrants to CECOT in El Salvador.

More recently, he drew fresh GOP backlash after reports surfaced that he approved warrants in former special counsel Jack Smith's "Arctic Frost" probe that enabled investigators to seize phone records connected to some Republican lawmakers.

A top federal court official defended Boasberg from those accusations in December, however, saying that the judge would likely have been unaware that the gag orders were hiding subpoenas that were intended to target members of Congress.

He first faced articles of impeachment in March 2025 for preventing the administration from deporting some illegal migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, and again in November over the Arctic Frost decision.

Fox News' Emma Colton and The Associated Press contributed to this report.