DC Judge Boasberg Under Fire: Are Trump Cases Rigged From the Start?

Paul Riverbank, 12/7/2025Judge James Boasberg’s repeated presence in high-profile Trump-era cases reignites debates about judicial impartiality and the randomness of D.C. court assignments—offering a revealing look at how heated political disputes place federal judges and their decisions under constant public and political scrutiny.

Here’s how it actually works: in D.C.’s federal courthouse, an unfeeling algorithm doles out the next case, no checks or balances, just cold randomness. Former judge Philip Pro put it bluntly: “You get what the computer gives you.” Still, suspicion lingers. The more frequently Boasberg presides over disputes involving Donald Trump or former administration officials, the more some spectators start to wonder—is it really just chance?

He’s hardly the only one under scrutiny for court assignments, though. Judge Ana Reyes faced tough calls over military policies on transgender service members. Judge Jia Cobb, for her part, was thrust into the fray over hotly contested troop deployments. But Boasberg, thanks to his years on the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, gets far more attention—some of it unwelcome.

One episode stands out. Remember Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI attorney who altered an email involving surveillance on Trump adviser Carter Page? That incident exploded into a national storm and when the case landed on Boasberg’s desk, his decision—essentially, that Clinesmith had endured enough public hostility—rankled critics. They weren’t shy, and neither was the former president, who rolled Boasberg into his familiar critique of so-called “activist judges.”

There was more. When Boasberg halted deportation flights for Venezuelan nationals, only for those flights to go ahead anyway, the judge made it clear he wouldn’t let it slide. He demanded testimony from government officials, intent on uncovering whether his orders had been brazenly ignored. “He didn’t just grab this case off the street,” former Judge Liam O’Grady noted, pointing out that legal arguments landed in Boasberg’s lap like everyone else’s. “You have one side saying the government can’t do this, the other insisting it can—and then the judge has to decide and absorb whatever fallout follows.”

But the wrangling over judicial process can obscure the deeper reality: these are people’s lives hanging in the balance. Consider Texas, where Judge David Guaderrama erupted when a man named Faustino Pablo Pablo was sent back to Guatemala before his court could decide if deportation meant almost certain danger. The judge called the move “blatant lawlessness,” and ordered the man returned, stressing his safety must come before bureaucratic convenience.

It isn’t the first time removals happened in defiance of court directives, either—other cases saw deportees flown to Mexico, El Salvador, elsewhere, sometimes with government lawyers conceding rules had been broken. The courts intervened again and again, their power sometimes the only thing standing between an individual and an irreversible mistake.

Politicians have noticed the pattern. House Republicans, for example, fired off letters demanding transparency about how those supposedly random assignments really work, urging the judiciary to reassure a skeptical public. Yet most judges and attorneys shrug off the conspiracy talk, pointing to the rigorous procedures built into case allocation.

Still, skepticism stubbornly persists. In D.C., where federal authority and political ambition intersect, every judicial decision gets second-guessed. For Boasberg and others in his position, such scrutiny is simply part of the job—an inescapable piece of life on the bench. The criticism, even when personal, often says more about the high stakes than about any alleged sleight of hand inside the court.

Judges in Washington rarely expect to become household names, yet some inevitably do—often because fate, in the form of a computer, hands them cases no one else wants to touch. Take, for instance, Judge James Boasberg. His docket of late has become something of a lightning rod, drawing attention from pundits and politicians alike. It’s a predicament Boasberg never asked for, but such is the reality when major legal battles pass through the nation’s capital.Here’s how it actually works: in D.C.’s federal courthouse, an unfeeling algorithm doles out the next case, no checks or balances, just cold randomness. Former judge Philip Pro put it bluntly: “You get what the computer gives you.” Still, suspicion lingers. The more frequently Boasberg presides over disputes involving Donald Trump or former administration officials, the more some spectators start to wonder—is it really just chance?He’s hardly the only one under scrutiny for court assignments, though. Judge Ana Reyes faced tough calls over military policies on transgender service members. Judge Jia Cobb, for her part, was thrust into the fray over hotly contested troop deployments. But Boasberg, thanks to his years on the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, gets far more attention—some of it unwelcome.One episode stands out. Remember Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI attorney who altered an email involving surveillance on Trump adviser Carter Page? That incident exploded into a national storm and when the case landed on Boasberg’s desk, his decision—essentially, that Clinesmith had endured enough public hostility—rankled critics. They weren’t shy, and neither was the former president, who rolled Boasberg into his familiar critique of so-called “activist judges.”There was more. When Boasberg halted deportation flights for Venezuelan nationals, only for those flights to go ahead anyway, the judge made it clear he wouldn’t let it slide. He demanded testimony from government officials, intent on uncovering whether his orders had been brazenly ignored. “He didn’t just grab this case off the street,” former Judge Liam O’Grady noted, pointing out that legal arguments landed in Boasberg’s lap like everyone else’s. “You have one side saying the government can’t do this, the other insisting it can—and then the judge has to decide and absorb whatever fallout follows.”But the wrangling over judicial process can obscure the deeper reality: these are people’s lives hanging in the balance. Consider Texas, where Judge David Guaderrama erupted when a man named Faustino Pablo Pablo was sent back to Guatemala before his court could decide if deportation meant almost certain danger. The judge called the move “blatant lawlessness,” and ordered the man returned, stressing his safety must come before bureaucratic convenience.It isn’t the first time removals happened in defiance of court directives, either—other cases saw deportees flown to Mexico, El Salvador, elsewhere, sometimes with government lawyers conceding rules had been broken. The courts intervened again and again, their power sometimes the only thing standing between an individual and an irreversible mistake.Politicians have noticed the pattern. House Republicans, for example, fired off letters demanding transparency about how those supposedly random assignments really work, urging the judiciary to reassure a skeptical public. Yet most judges and attorneys shrug off the conspiracy talk, pointing to the rigorous procedures built into case allocation.Still, skepticism stubbornly persists. In D.C., where federal authority and political ambition intersect, every judicial decision gets second-guessed. For Boasberg and others in his position, such scrutiny is simply part of the job—an inescapable piece of life on the bench. The criticism, even when personal, often says more about the high stakes than about any alleged sleight of hand inside the court.