Judge who’s mucking up Trump’s agenda is put in hotseat for attending questionable event

Congressman Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, is calling for an end to special interest judicial junkets after it was revealed that a federal judge challenging President Donald Trump had attended one.

Just the News exposed the apparent conflict of interest, in which Judge James Boasberg attended a “privately-funded conference with an anti-Trump organization last year.” Boasberg issued a court order preventing the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members without having to go through the traditional removal proceedings. He further demanded the administration provide proof it did not violate his order to turn around any flights containing migrants after the ACLU accused the White House of not abiding by the order. This has sparked a showdown between the judge and Trump, and the latest news is not doing Boasberg any favors.

On Sunday, it was reported that the judge joined eight other “Democrat-appointed judges and three Trump nominated jurists” at a Sun Valley, Idaho conference that “featured sponsors and speakers who have expressed clear anti-Trump sentiments — particularly on immigration — and a theme that echoed the Democrat Party’s 2024 stated mission of saving democracy, according to a judicial ethics report.”

During a Monday interview with John Solomon and Amanda Head, Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance chairman Biggs pulled no punches on the topic.

“This is a problem, isn’t it? I mean, you really want to have your judges kind of stay aloof, if possible, from some of the top issues. … A responsible judge is going to recuse themselves, and they’re going to say, ‘Look, I can’t really get there because I have had, I’ve got unique knowledge. I’ve been engaged in things.’ In fact, you could even say it has the appearance of impropriety and then step away from it. But this judge doesn’t seem to have that capacity in him,” he said. “He should step aside now, of course, but we’re down the road quite a good ways here with him.”

“I think Democrats actually would support the ‘no junkets’ idea, so this is something that needs to happen, I do believe.”

Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz agreed that at the very least, Boasberg’s attendance at the conference created the appearance of conflict of interest, something judges usually go out of their way to avoid. He agreed that “it would be better to have a blanket rule” banning the junkets, noting that “a lot of judges would get very upset, because they really live for the summer.”

“I think it begins and ends with Congress,” Dershowitz concluded “Now, Congress clearly has the authority over the lower courts. … I think it would be better to have a blanket rule prohibiting the junkets. Right now, they have to be reported, and we know there have been some instances where they haven’t been reported, right? … People love the cliché ‘nobody is above the law.’ Certainly judges are not above the law.”

Writer/Columnist

Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to BizPac Review.

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