MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The federal judge who hit pause on one of President Trump's immigration plans is attracting a lot of attention. Judge James Boasberg, of Washington, D.C., is facing calls for his impeachment simply because he ruled against the White House. NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson has been covering the judge for some time. She's here to spend some time with us and tell us what she's learned. Hey, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hey there.
KELLY: Introduce us more fully to Judge Boasberg.
JOHNSON: His name is James Boasberg, but his friends call him Jeb. He actually shared a house with future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when they attended Yale Law School together.
KELLY: Wow.
JOHNSON: And Boasberg served for more than five years as a prosecutor when he took on some of the toughest homicide cases in D.C. in the late 1990s. NPR spoke with a friend of the judge. His name is Ron Machen, and he shared an office with the judge back when they were prosecutors. Here's what Machen told me.
RON MACHEN: You know, this is a guy and that's devoted his life to public service, that could be the managing partner of probably any firm in the city making millions of dollars. But he has devoted his life to serving people.
JOHNSON: Boasberg first became a judge when a Republican president, George W. Bush, appointed him to the municipal court here in Washington many years ago.
KELLY: So he was initially appointed by a Republican president. Interesting because the current Republican president is calling him, and I quote, "a radical left lunatic." What has been his record on the bench?
JOHNSON: I should note the Senate unanimously confirmed Boasberg to the federal court in 2011 during the Obama years. That vote was 96 to 0. And since then, he's ruled both for and against Donald Trump and Trump's interests. One of his biggest rulings as chief judge of the district court here in D.C. paved the way for a grand jury testimony by former Vice President Mike Pence. That was part of the investigation of Trump's role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol four years ago.
But the judge has also sided with Trump years earlier in a dispute about Trump's personal tax returns. And Boasberg also ordered the government to review thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails - part of an investigation into her use of a personal server when she was secretary of state.
KELLY: Now, in this current moment, it's a case about immigration that has got the judge in the national spotlight. What's at stake in that case?
JOHNSON: This is a fight over the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. It's not clear how many of those men actually belong to that gang or that they had any prior criminal record. The judge has said these are really difficult issues because a president has a lot of power over immigration and national security. The judge did decide to put a temporary pause on the flights out of the U.S., but the government may have flouted one of his orders he gave from the bench to stop flights or turn around planes that already were in the air.
KELLY: Right, and how's the judge responded?
JOHNSON: Boasberg's been demanding some specific answers from the Justice Department about that, but DOJ doesn't want to provide everything the judge has asked for. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week tens of millions of Americans had voted for Trump's tough immigration plans. Here's more of what she had to say.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: The judges in this country are acting erroneously. We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow walk this administration's agenda, and it's unacceptable.
KELLY: And Carrie, as we can hear there, things have escalated really quickly to the point that there are now calls - including from the president - to impeach this judge, and the judiciary is pushing back against that?
JOHNSON: That's right. A Republican lawmaker from Texas this week introduced articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg. There have only been 15 impeachments of federal judges in history, mostly for things like taking bribes or corruption. And to actually remove a judge would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate. That won't happen given the math in the Senate this year, but even the threat of impeachment is a problem according to current and former judges.
KELLY: And why is that? What are you hearing from people inside the judiciary?
JOHNSON: Well, Chief Justice John Roberts actually took the rare step of speaking out to say impeachment is not an appropriate response when you disagree with a judge's decision. That's what the appeals process is for, he said. Trump allies are nonetheless proposing impeachment of at least half a dozen other judges who've ruled against Trump or the DOGE team this year. Judges tell me they're worried about this heated rhetoric. They are really worried that could lead to violence against themselves or their families.
KELLY: NPR's Carrie Johnson. Thanks, Carrie.
JOHNSON: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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