APPEALS COURT CANCELS JUDGE BOASBERG ADVENTURE SHOW

In a thrilling episode of “As the Federal World Turns,” the D.C. Circuit politely informed Judge James Boasberg that his plan to drag top Trump officials into contempt hearings over the return of alleged Tren de Aragua members was, in the court’s very unshowy phrase, a “clear abuse of discretion.” Apparently the district court’s idea of national security oversight was to rummage through high-level executive deliberations like a determined toddler with a cabinet latch, even though the original order never actually said anything about transferring custody. Judge Neomi Rao noted, with the kind of icy restraint usually reserved for someone returning a bad salad, that the government had already named the responsible official, making further judicial detective work not just unnecessary but improper. Meanwhile, the whole affair managed to achieve that rare Washington achievement of being both solemn and absurd: the Supreme Court had already vacated Boasberg’s original order for being filed in the wrong venue, yet he still found probable cause for criminal contempt, because in America nothing says “final answer” like continuing the argument after the court has moved on