Judge had 'everything' he needed to refer Kristi Noem for prosecution but went 'off the rails' with 'pointless' probe of her state of mind: DOJ

Left: Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas Kristi Noem attends the Organization of American States where visiting Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa is to speak, Thursday, May 14, 2026, in Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin). Right: Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg speaks on a panel in April 2025 at an American Bar Association meeting (PBS NewsHour/YouTube).

A powerful federal judge in Washington, D.C., created a "pointless spectacle" when he ordered "live testimony" in court from two lawyers with nothing "relevant" to share about former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's state of mind, according to the DOJ.

The Trump administration submitted a 70-page brief on Wednesday, telling the full — en banc — U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg's contempt inquiry has gone "off the rails."

The controversy goes back to March 15, 2025, when Boasberg orally issued a temporary restraining order, blocking sweeping Alien Enemies Act deportations of Venezuelan nationals and alleged gang members to a notorious Salvadoran prison. He also ordered the Trump administration to turn around any planes that were in the air. The planes did not turn around, and the judge has pressed ever since for answers on whether the government "willfully" violated his order and who made the decision to "transfer the deportees out of United States custody."

By December, not long after the D.C. Circuit said he was "free to require the government to identify the decision makers who directed the potentially contemptuous actions," Boasberg did just that — and then some — to answer if he could "find probable cause that [Noem's] actions constituted criminal contempt."

Unsatisfied with "cursory declarations" submitted by Noem — the "responsible decisionmaker" — and other high-ranking officials, the judge ordered fired DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign to testify under oath.

More Law&Crime coverage: DOJ attorney accused of lying to Judge Boasberg about Alien Enemies Act deportations

The Trump administration swiftly appealed, frustrating Boasberg's inquiry again in April. But in late June, the D.C. Circuit granted a petition to rehear the case en banc.

Hoping to vanquish the "metastasizing" criminal contempt inquiry once and for all as a constitutional overreach, the DOJ argued Wednesday that Boasberg already has "everything" he once said he needed to refer Noem for a criminal contempt prosecution but chose instead to stage a "pointless spectacle."

The attempt to compel testimony of government lawyers — current and former — is "grossly improper by every measure" and poses "a mortal threat to the attorney-client privilege," the brief said.

The two attorneys' testimony "cannot shed light on the Secretary's scienter because neither advised her nor has any other basis to opine on her mens rea," the government maintained.

"In launching an inquiry into Secretary Noem's alleged criminal scienter, the court has strayed far beyond its proper role in our constitutional scheme, which is limited (at least at this stage) to identifying a potential violation and referring it for investigation and prosecution," the filing said, urging the full D.C. Circuit to either order Boasberg to end the contempt inquiry or force him to issue the referral "without compelling further testimony."