Trump Administration Tells Judge To Be More 'Respectful'

LOADING ERROR LOADING After days of defying a federal judge concerning the expulsion of hundreds of migrants to a brutal prison in El Salvador, the Trump administration told the judge Wednesday to be more “respectful.” In turn, the judge gave the administration 24 more hours to fulfill a demand for information related to the administration’s defiance of his previous orders. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s demands for information about flights carrying hundreds of migrants were actually “a picayune dispute over the micromanagement of immaterial factfinding” the Trump administration said in a new filing, which urged Boasberg to “stay,” or pause, his order for more information. Throughout the seven-page filing, the Trump administration railed against Boasberg, the chief judge for the Washington, D.C., district court, and said his request for supposedly “immaterial information” represented “grave usurpations” of the president’s power. Circuit can issue its stay ruling,” Wednesday’s Trump administration filing said, adding: “Continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts and wholly within a sphere of core functions of the Executive Branch is both purposeless and frustrating to the consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case.” The filing, which, like others, carried the name of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Justice Department senior officials, said Boasberg’s orders were based on the premise “that the Judicial Branch is superior to the Executive Branch,” and presented a serious future risk “of micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expeditions and potential public disclosure.” It called for more time to determine “whether to invoke the state secrets privilege” concerning the flight information. For the other two flights, Boasberg has demanded information on how many people on the flights were subject to the Alien Enemies Act proclamation, the timing of their take-off and landing, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in foreign countries, and what time individuals subject to the proclamation were “transferred out of U.S. custody.” The administration said providing the information under seal “would result in an immediate flood of media inquiries and demands for the information, subjecting the diplomatic relationships at issue to unacceptable uncertainty about how the Court will address those demands.” But Boasberg noted that the administration itself had engaged in “extensive promotion” of the flights.