This Is a Crucial Week in the Fight Against Trump’s Assault on the Law

Notwithstanding Boasberg’s instructions, the planes landed in El Salvador and the men went straight into a maximum-security prison, and that country’s president posted a laughing emoji and the word, “Oopsie.”

Later, a whistleblower—Erez Reuveni, a career Justice Department lawyer, since fired—told Congress that at a March 14 leadership meeting, then–senior DOJ official Emil Bove said the planes were leaving “no matter what” and that the Department might have to say “Fuck You” to the courts. Bove, since rewarded with a lifetime seat on the Third Circuit, told the Senate he couldn’t recall the profane remark.

Boasberg has doggedly insisted on getting to the bottom of what happened for well over a year. That has entailed plowing past a series of avoidance maneuvers from the administration. The extended bob-and-weave has included its refusing to address his questions on national security grounds, dismissing the matter as a “picayune dispute,” floating and then not invoking the state secrets privilege, serving up a declaration so empty that Boasberg called it “woefully insufficient,” and filing a misconduct complaint against the judge himself.