Who gave the orders to disobey a judge's ruling?

With a contempt inquiry looming, the Department of Justice (DOJ) named Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the Trump official who earlier this year approved the transfer of hundreds of people from the U.S. to a notorious Salvadoran megaprison after a judge forbade the removals.

  Democracy Docket

Lock her up?

The DOJ’s disclosure gives further insight into who in the Trump administration rebuffed court orders from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who said earlier this month that he planned to move forward with contempt proceedings against the Trump officials involved in carrying out the flights to El Salvador.

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In its new filing Tuesday, the DOJ said Noem approved the flights to El Salvador after being informed of the court’s order. The DOJ claimed that Noem’s actions were based on legal advice she received from a Department of Homeland Security lawyer.

The DOJ also asserted that Noem’s actions were legal because senior DOJ officials, including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and then-Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, did not believe Boasberg’s orders applied to flights that had already left.

Complete and total bullshit.

For months, the Trump administration has defended the removals by claiming that Boasberg’s initial oral order requiring it to return those removed under the AEA was not binding and his written order could not apply to the flights because they were outside of U.S. airspace.

Boasberg rejected those arguments when, in April, he said he found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court for showing “a willful disregard” toward his orders. The judge’s attempt to proceed with contempt, however, was halted by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for seven months.

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The judge also said he intends to receive testimony from former DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, who accused his superiors of defying Boasberg’s order in a bombshell complaint earlier this year.

Reuveni, whose account was corroborated by internal DOJ documents, claimed that Bove, who is now a federal judge, suggested his subordinates should tell courts “f*** you” and ignore their orders to carry out Trump’s aggressive removals.

In a filing Tuesday, plaintiffs also recommended that Boasberg call Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, who has defended some of Trump’s most extreme deportation actions, as a witness in his contempt probe..

In a March 15 hearing, Ensign told Boasberg that he wasn’t aware of any plans to carry out the removal flights even as planes were idling on the tarmac or had already taken off.