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

newrepublic.com · 4h · first reportShare

On Tuesday, the full D.C. Circuit will hear arguments in a case that began on a Saturday evening in March 2025, when a federal judge ordered two planeloads of Venezuelan men returned to the United States and the administration, hours later, transported them to a prison in El Salvador instead. Eighteen months later, the only question before the court is narrow, and worth stating precisely, because the government has spent great energy twisting it into something else: may Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court James Boasberg continue to inquire into whether the administration knowingly defied his order? The case has taken a long, tortuous path to tomorrow’s hearing. It is important in itself, but the stakes reach past it, to whether this administration set out to buck the law from the first days of Trump 2.0. That’s why I left my usual seat in the journalist’s box and signed onto an amicus brief in the case, one of 12 former Justice Department officials, Republicans and Democrats alike,