A former Department of Justice chief of staff suggested that the department flout a court order from a federal inquiry, all while said judge pushes an inquiry into whether or not the department advised Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to deliberately flout one of his orders from March.
On Tuesday morning, senior Politico reporter Kyle Cheney highlighted a post to X from Chad Mizelle, who served as DOJ chief of staff from the start of Donald Trump's second term through October, departing the office for unspecified reasons. In the post, he urged the DOJ to "ignore" a demand for testimony from Judge James Boasberg.
"DOJ should not give loser Boasberg the time of day," Mizelle wrote. "Don't participate in his clown show. Ignore him. In the meantime, Congress needs to start acting like a co-equal [sic] branch and initiate its own inquiry into Boasberg."
Boasberg's inquiry seeks to determine if DHS intentionally disobeyed his order from March to prevent 137 Venezuelan men from being deported to the infamously violent CECOT prison in El Salvador, and if they were advised to do so by the DOJ. As Cheney highlighted in his own post, Mizelle, who was DOJ chief of staff at the time of the order, appears to be making the same suggestion now.
"Boasberg is trying to determine whether people inside DOJ advised Kristi Noem et al to blow off a court order," Cheney wrote. "Tonight, the guy who was chief of staff at the time of the events in question is telling DOJ … to blow off Boasberg’s order."
Boasberg initially made the ruling due to concerns that the men had not received due process, after lawyers for the men frantically petitioned the court to prevent their deportations. Despite his order, the planes carrying the men were not turned around. Noem previously claimed in November that she gave the order to turn over the Venezuelan men to El Salvador on the advice of Trump administration lawyers.
The judge is now seeking testimony from two DOJ lawyers who were involved in the March deportation effort, including one who has since been fired for defying the Trump administration's plans.
