By Jan Wolfe and C. Ryan Barber

WASHINGTON -- When sentencing a Capitol rioter last year, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg got an earful from the Jan. 6 defendant, who called him a clown.

"I'm happy to let you say whatever you wish," Boasberg told the man, a member of the far-right Proud Boys, adding, "I have treated you with courtesy in all of these proceedings."

In the end, Boasberg gave the defendant six years in prison -- 15 months less than what prosecutors requested. Later, after a change in the law, he reduced the sentence by another year, over the Justice Department's objections.

People close to the 62-year-old judge say he is bringing that same measured style to an immigration case that has produced a standoff with the Trump administration and placed him at the center of the president's rhetorical campaign against the judiciary.

Boasberg has faced constant attacks -- and calls for his impeachment -- from President Trump and his supporters since his March 15 order temporarily blocking the president from invoking wartime powers to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. The administration deported hundreds anyway, but it disputes that it has defied any court order. The judge on Thursday said he is weighing whether to hold Trump officials in contempt.

Boasberg, who serves as the chief judge of the federal trial court in Washington, has only so much time to spend deliberating. He was recently assigned a case in which a government watchdog group is seeking records from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's sharing of military plans on a Signal chat group. And later this month, the judge is set to preside over a long-awaited antitrust trial in which the government is seeking to unwind Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Leading a court under strain

Boasberg ascended to the chief judgeship in 2023, a role that positioned him as the nominal leader of the Washington court as it has transitioned from handling a deluge of prosecutions stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to a new era marked by high-profile challenges to Trump policies, often in expedited proceedings that put an added strain on him and other judges.

As chief judge, he presides over sensitive grand-jury disputes and occasionally serves as the public face of the court, but otherwise he receives random case assignments as other judges do. During his investiture ceremony, he likened the position to an undertaker: While there are a lot of people below him, he joked, nobody is really listening.

Still, the Washington courthouse has long been known for its collegiality. As Trump has called him a liberal lunatic -- and worse -- other judges have privately offered him words of encouragement. Chief Justice John Roberts publicly rebuked Trump for calling for Boasberg's removal, but the president's verbal jabs have only grown more intense since. In the midst of the public attention, court staff have joked that they have learned more about Boasberg in recent weeks than they had in the previous decade.

Bonds across the political spectrum

Boasberg attended Yale, where he played forward on the basketball team. He also performed in Yale Children's Theater productions, at one point playing the seventh dwarf in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," despite his 6-foot-6 frame.

The judge, who goes by Jeb, has a résumé that wouldn't necessarily stick out as a target of Trump's ire. He was roommates in law school with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the two remain friends. He was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama, but previously was appointed to a judgeship on the local court for the District of Columbia by President George W. Bush. Having grown up in Washington, D.C., Boasberg served as a federal prosecutor in the city from 1996 to 2002, specializing in homicide cases.

During Trump's first term, Boasberg rejected a nonprofit organization's attempt to obtain the president's tax records. And in 2020, Boasberg faulted the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its handling of applications to wiretap Carter Page, a onetime Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser.

In cases stemming from the Capitol riot, Boasberg deplored the Jan. 6 violence, but not in as fiery terms as some other judges. His sentences almost always fell below what federal prosecutors recommended.

Trump's portrayal of Boasberg as a leftist is "a function of the president not knowing Jeb and not knowing what he's talking about," said John Keker, a trial lawyer who once worked with Boasberg at the litigation firm now known as Keker, Van Nest & Peters.

Hot-button docket

Like many judges on the court, Boasberg has been the referee for a steady stream of ideologically charged cases, dating back to Trump's first term. He drew criticism from Trump supporters in 2021 for his sentencing of Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer who admitted to altering an email that was used to justify surveillance on Page, the former Trump campaign official.

A Justice Department team requested a sentence of at least a few months in prison, but Boasberg instead mandated probation and community service, saying Clinesmith had suffered enough because of a "media hurricane."

Boasberg was in the early days of his tenure as chief judge when he faced a consequential question: Could former Vice President Mike Pence be compelled to testify before a grand jury related to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election?

In sealed proceedings, Boasberg ordered Pence to testify, rejecting claims of executive privilege by Trump's legal team. An appeals court later upheld the ruling, paving the way for Pence to testify in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation.

The ruling, combined with decisions from other judges, instilled among Trump and his allies a belief that the Washington court was out to get him. That sense grew when, during Trump's arraignment before a magistrate on Smith's election-interference charges, Boasberg and several other judges appeared in the audience, watching from the back row.

Boasberg attended the historic hearing, for which the court had prepared extensively, to ensure it unfolded smoothly, according to people familiar with his thinking.

Boasberg's recent assignment to the Signal litigation caught the attention of Trump, who declared on social media that the judge "seems to be grabbing the 'Trump Cases' all to himself." But, the president said, "It probably doesn't matter, because it is virtually impossible for me to get an Honest Ruling in D.C."

Without naming Trump, Boasberg said at an initial hearing that he had "come to understand that some questions have been raised" about how he got the case. In almost all instances, he said, new litigation is randomly assigned through an automated system to assure an even distribution of work among the district's judges.

"That's how it works," he said.

Write to Jan Wolfe at jan.wolfe@wsj.com and C. Ryan Barber at ryan.barber@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 06, 2025 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)

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