WASHINGTON – The Justice Department failed Wednesday to provide information a federal judge requested about deportation flights of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act, instead filing a request for a postponement to wait for appeals courts to block what it called a potentially “catastrophic” disclosure.
The filing escalated a legal clash over the deportations that has already led President Donald Trump to call for Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s impeachment and a rebuke of Trump by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Boasberg demanded information by noon Tuesday about the number of deportation flights on Saturday, the number of passengers and the foreign destinations. He asked for the information as he weighs whether the government defied his oral and written orders to halt the flights and potentially turn around flights in the air.
But lawyers led by Attorney General Pam Bondi said providing the information to Boasberg would infringe on Trump‘s authority to carry out deportations and his leadership of foreign relations by potentially leading to its release to Venezuelans or reporters.
“Once that secondary disclosure occurred, any opportunity for appellate review would be moot; the damage would be done, and the effect on United States foreign policy could be catastrophic,” the lawyers wrote.
Department lawyers insisted the government obeyed the judge’s written order blocking the flights but that a previous oral order while the planes were in the air wasn’t enforceable. And they contend Trump had the authority to conduct the flights as the commander-in-chief of the military and the country’s head of foreign affairs.
Government lawyers asked for a one-day delay to detail the flights to consider whether to invoke the president’s state-secrets privilege to withhold the information. Boasberg granted the department’s request for a one-day delay in providing the flight information by noon Thursday.
Government lawyers have also appealed Boasberg’s blocking of the flights. An initial decision from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected this week and could derail the judge’s request, the lawyers wrote.
The dispute could eventually reach the Supreme Court. The high court has previously issued guidelines on the state-secrets privilege, if the government takes that approach, the lawyers said.
The government lawyers also criticized the judge for pursuing the flight information. The lawyers said the dispute over flight schedules “devolved into a picayune dispute over the micromanagement of immaterial factfinding.”
“That observation reflects how upside-down this case has become, as digressive micromanagement has outweighed consideration of the case’s legal issues,” the lawyers wrote.
Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act on Friday and that order went into effect on Saturday, allowing deportation without hearings for foreign citizens of a country at war or that has invaded the U.S.
Before Trump, the act had only been invoked three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. But Trump and his lawyers contend the Venezuelan crime group Tren de Aragua is invading the U.S. for criminal purposes.
Trump called Tuesday for Boasberg’s impeachment. Roberts, the head of the Supreme Court, rebuked Trump for criticizing a judge rather than simply appealing his decision.
