A judge frequently criticized by President Donald Trump and members of his administration has been assigned to a lawsuit against top officials over the use of messaging app Signal to discuss highly-sensitive topics.
Concretely, judge James Boasberg, who Trump has called a "radical left lunatic of a judge," has been assigned to the lawsuit filed by watchdog group American Oversight against officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The suit alleges that using the app to conduct official business constitutes a violation of the Federal Records Act as the fact that messages delete automatically after a period of time bypasses legal obligations to preserve government records.
The lawsuit will be considered by judge Boasberg, on the receiving end of fierce criticism by Trump for his opposition to the use of the Alien Enemies Act to conduct swift deportations of Venezuelans accused of being part of Tren de Aragua gang.
"HE DIDN'T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I'm just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON'T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY," Trump said last week in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, as a legal battle over the legality of the act continues.
The latest development in the case took place this week when the Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege on Monday to withhold details from judge Boasberg. In a Monday filing, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other DOJ officials argued that disclosing flight details would endanger national security and foreign relations, as CNN reports:
"The Court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it. Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address"
The case has been dominating headlines, with Circuit Court Judge Patricia Millett comparing the treatment of Venezuelans to how Nazis detained in the U.S. during World War II were afforded greater legal protections, as CBS News explains. Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign responded by saying: "we certainly dispute the Nazi analogy."
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