Days after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem provided little information about her actions in a high-stakes deportation case, a federal judge on Monday expanded his criminal contempt probe into the matter, ordering a top Justice Department attorney to testify under oath about the episode.
US District Judge James Boasberg ordered Drew Ensign, a top DOJ lawyer involved in immigration litigation, to testify next week about decisions made by administration officials in mid-March that resulted in the deportation of migrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, despite the judge’s order for flights carrying the migrants to turn around pending a legal challenge to Trump’s use of the act.
Boasberg also said he wanted to hear from Erez Reuveni, an ex-Justice Department lawyer who alleged in a whistleblower complaint earlier this year that a then-top DOJ official told his colleagues in March that the administration intended to ignore court orders as part of the President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation effort.
The judge said the live testimony was necessary because Noem, who made the decision to allow the migrants to continue to be transferred to El Salvador, provided little information about the affair to the court in a sworn statement last week.
“As this declaration does not provide enough information for the Court to determine whether her decision was a willful violation of the Court’s Order, the Court cannot at this juncture find probable cause that her actions constituted criminal contempt,” Boasberg wrote in a brief order Monday.
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