The Trump administration has been withholding information from a judge in Washington, D.C., in a case about Alien Enemies Act deportations because the information is, according to the Department of Justice, too sensitive to divulge.
But in a twist, that same judge is now set to preside over a new court case against five of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members who have been accused of mishandling sensitive national security information.
Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee and chief judge of Washington’s district court, was randomly assigned to the lawsuit, brought by the left-leaning nonprofit American Oversight on Tuesday in response to the Atlantic’s bombshell story about the Cabinet members’ use of the Signal messaging app.
The complaint alleges that when Trump administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz, discussed imminent plans to carry out airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen this month, they did so on Signal with messages set to auto-delete after a certain time frame, in violation of the Federal Records Act.
The lawsuit came one day after the DOJ invoked the powerful state secrets privilege on Monday in response to Boasberg’s demands for information in a separate case about flights that deported alleged Venezuelan gang members earlier this month through the Alien Enemies Act.
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The DOJ said the information involved national security matters that were so sensitive they could not even share them with the judge in an “ex parte,” or private, setting.
Boasberg’s assignment to the Signal case was made at random, his chambers confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Boasberg drew Trump’s ire after temporarily enjoining him from using the Alien Enemies Act this month. The president and some Republicans in Congress went as far as to call for his impeachment over the case. The judge has a long history of presiding over political cases involving Trump, and he has issued decisions both favorable and unfavorable to the president.
In 2017, for example, Boasberg rejected a lawsuit aiming to force the IRS to release Trump’s tax returns. In 2023, the judge ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to testify before a grand jury about his contact with Trump in the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021.