James Boasberg

James Emanuel "Jeb" Boasberg (born February 20, 1963) is an American lawyer and jurist who is currently serving as the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Boasberg was nominated by President George W. Bush to be a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, where he served from 2002 to 2011. President Barack Obama nominated him to a federal judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a unanimous vote in March 2011.

Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Boasberg to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in 2014, and he served as the presiding judge of the FISC from 2020 to 2021. In 2020, he was appointed to the United States Alien Terrorist Removal Court and designated chief judge.

Early life and education

Boasberg was born in San Francisco, California, in 1963, to parents Sarah Margaret (née Szold) and Emanuel Boasberg III. The following year, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Boasberg grew up, after his father accepted a position in the Office of Economic Opportunity, which played a key role in implementing many of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty programs. James and his younger brother Tom both attended St. Albans School, an Episcopal college prep academy in Washington.

After graduating from St. Albans in 1981, Boasberg attended Yale University, where he was a member of the undergraduate society Skull and Bones and, at tall, played forward for the Yale Bulldogs men's basketball team. He graduated in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, ''magna cum laude''. The following year, he earned a Master of Studies degree from St Peter's College, Oxford.Alt URL
From 1986 to 1987, Boasberg worked as a history teacher and women's basketball coach at Horace Mann School in New York City. He then enrolled at Yale Law School, where he was a classmate of and lived in a group house with future Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. He graduated in 1990 with a Juris Doctor degree.

Clerkship and legal career, 1990–2001

After completing law school, Boasberg served from 1990 to 1991 as a law clerk for Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. He then went into private practice, working from 1991 to 1994 in San Francisco at Keker, Brockett & Van Nest (now Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP) and from 1995 to 1996 in the District of Columbia at Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. While at Kellogg, he was briefly colleagues with Neil Gorsuch.

In 1996 Boasberg joined the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he spent five and a half years as a prosecutor, specializing in homicides.

Judicial service, 2002–present

On March 12, 2002, after Judge Gregory E. Mize retired from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, the District of Columbia Judicial Nomination Commission recommended Boasberg, Noël A. Brennan, and Brian F. Holeman as potential replacements. President George W. Bush nominated Boasberg on May 13, 2002. On July 25, 2002, the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs favorably reported out his nomination by voice vote. The full Senate confirmed his nomination by voice vote on August 1, 2002. Boasberg officially took his commission as an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, in September 2002, for a term of 15 years. He served in the civil and criminal divisions, and the domestic violence branch, until his appointment to the federal bench in 2011.

During the 111th Congress, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton recommended Boasberg to fill a judicial vacancy on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
On June 17, 2010, President Barack Obama formally nominated Boasberg to the district court for the District of Columbia. Boasberg was confirmed on March 14, 2011, by a 96–0 vote. He received his commission on March 17, 2011. He became the chief judge on March 17, 2023.

Boasberg is considered a feeder judge who sends many of his law clerks to clerk for Supreme Court justices.

Appointment to United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, 2014–2021

On February 7, 2014, Chief Justice John G. Roberts announced that he would appoint Boasberg to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for a term starting May 18, 2014, to a seat being vacated by Reggie Walton. His term began May 18, 2014. On December 20, 2019, the FISC announced he would replace the presiding judge on January 1, 2020 and be elevated to that role. His term as presiding judge and judge of the FISC ended on May 19, 2021.

Appointment to supervise FISA reforms

After a special appointment to oversee FISA court reforms, the judge made orders and procedures to the FISA court following the irregularities and criminal offenses discovered by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz in his Crossfire Hurricane investigation report. Presiding on the trial and sentencing of Kevin Clinesmith for altering an email that was used in the FISA filing for an investigation of Trump presidential advisor Carter Page, Boasberg gave Clinesmith probation rather than the recommended prison time.

Appointment to Alien Terrorist Removal court

In 2020, he was appointed to the United States Alien Terrorist Removal Court and designated chief judge. His term ended in 2025.

Notable rulings

Osama Bin Laden photos

On April 26, 2012, Boasberg ruled that the public had no right to view government photos of a deceased Osama bin Laden. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, had filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but was unsuccessful in convincing Boasberg that FOIA rights outweighed national-security factors.

Hillary Clinton emails

On August 22, 2016, Boasberg ordered the release of over 14,000 emails found in the United States Department of State correspondence of Hillary Clinton by the FBI during an investigation of Clinton's private server. These emails were requested by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, because the FBI had indicated that the emails were work-related and not entirely private as Clinton had previously said.

Trump tax returns

On August 18, 2017, Boasberg dismissed a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which had sued the IRS under FOIA seeking President Donald Trump's personal tax returns from 2010 to the present to be released. Boasberg concluded that because personal tax returns are confidential, they may only be obtained either by permission from Trump himself or if Congress' joint committee on taxation signed off to allow the disclosure.

Medicaid work rules

On March 27, 2019, Boasberg blocked a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid in Arkansas and Kentucky.

Dakota Access Pipeline

Boasberg has presided over litigation concerning the Dakota Access Pipeline since 2016.

On March 25, 2020, Boasberg ordered a sweeping new environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In a subsequent decision on July 6, 2020, he vacated an easement to cross the Missouri River pending completion of the environmental review and ordered the pipeline to be emptied within 30 days. On August 5, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the ruling regarding the easement; however, the judges vacated the order to empty the pipeline and asked the Army Corps of Engineers to submit a follow-up brief on whether they would allow continued pipeline operation without the easement.

North Atlantic right whale

On April 9, 2020, Boasberg issued an opinion finding that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it issued a biological opinion in 2014 allowing for the accidental killings of North Atlantic right whales, of which only about 400 remained as of April 8, 2020; by the American lobster fishery, which consists of seven areas spanning the east coast from Maine to North Carolina.

''J.G.G. v. Trump''

''J.G.G. v. Donald J. Trump'' is the name of a class action and ''habeas corpus'' lawsuit filed by five Venezuelan men in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody who were threatened with imminent removal under an expected proclamation from US president Donald Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

In early 2025, the second Trump administration began deporting Venezuelan nationals alleged to be members of Tren de Aragua, citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as justification. However, on March 15, 2025, Judge Boasberg issued a 14-day restraining order, stating that he did not believe federal law permits the Trump administration to bypass removal proceedings in this manner. Specifically, Boasberg noted there is no historical precedent for this kind of deportation when Congress has not made a declaration of war. In response, Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized Boasberg.

Though Boasberg verbally ordered that any planes in the air carrying those covered by his order be turned back and those individuals returned to the US, the Trump administration allowed flights carrying migrants from Venezuela to proceed to El Salvador. Trump border czar Tom Homan said that the Trump administration completed the deportations despite the court order because Boasberg's order was made when the planes were above international waters after departing the United States.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Boasberg's order "had no lawful basis.... A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier". Leavitt also expressed doubts about "whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a written order", while the Trump administration argued in court that "an oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction".

On March 17, 2025, Trump posted on social media that Boasberg was a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator" and called for his impeachment. The same day, Republican representative Brandon Gill introduced an impeachment resolution in the House of Representatives. In a rare public notice, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement which said in part: "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision."

After Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to provide more information about the deportation flights, the Department of Justice answered some of his questions in a court filing, but said that "there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate" because it would "disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations."

''American Oversight v. Hegseth''

''American Oversight v. Hegseth'' is a pending lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The case, submitted by watchdog group American Oversight, concerns allegations that officials in the Trump administration unlawfully used the encrypted Signal messaging app to discuss sensitive military operations, in violation of federal record-keeping laws. Chief Judge James Boasberg was randomly assigned to the case.

The "Houthi PC small group" chat was a messaging thread involving senior officials of the Trump administration in March 2025, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance. The group discussed operational details related to a U.S. military strike on Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15, 2025.

Personal life

Boasberg married Elizabeth Leslie Manson in 1991. His brother, Tom Boasberg, succeeded Michael Bennet as Superintendent of Denver Public Schools after Colorado Governor Bill Ritter appointed Bennet to the United States Senate in January 2009.

Boasberg is an aficionado of William Shakespeare's plays. In February 2018, he played a crown prosecutor in ''The Trial of Hamlet'' that was presented at the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

See also

*Medicaid expansion
*Efforts to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

References

External links

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Biography of Judge Boasberg at the Superior Court
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Boasberg, James E.
Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama
Judges of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
Judges of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia
Assistant United States attorneys
*
Lawyers from San Francisco
Lawyers from Washington, D.C.
Yale Law School alumni
Members of Skull and Bones
Alumni of St Peter's College, Oxford
St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.) alumni
1963 births
Living people