# James Boasberg

James Emanuel "Jeb" Boasberg (born February 20, 1963) is an American lawyer, who is the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He served as the presiding judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 2020 to 2021 and is a former associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

## Early life and education

Boasberg was born in San Francisco, California, in 1963, to parents Sarah Margaret (née Szold) and Emanuel Boasberg III. The family moved to Washington, D.C. when Boasberg's father accepted a position in Sargent Shriver's Office of Economic Opportunity, a "Great Society" agency responsible for implementing and administering many of Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty programs.
Boasberg went to St. Alban's School in Washington, D.C. After high school, Boasberg attended Yale University, where he was a member of the undergraduate society Skull and Bones, and he graduated in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude. The following year, he received a Master of Studies degree from St Peter's College, Oxford. From 1986 to 1987, Boasberg was a history teacher and women's basketball coach at Horace Mann School in New York City. He then attended Yale Law School, where he was a classmate of future Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. He graduated in 1990 with a Juris Doctor.

## Clerkship and legal career

After completing law school, Boasberg served as a law clerk for Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1990 to 1991. He then went into private practice, working in San Francisco at Keker, Brockett & Van Nest (now Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP) from 1991 to 1994 and then in the District of Columbia at Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick from 1995 to 1996. In 1996, Boasberg joined the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia where he would spend five and a half years as a prosecutor, specializing in homicides.

## Judicial service

In September 2002, Boasberg became an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, appointed by President George W. Bush. He served in the civil and criminal divisions, and the domestic violence branch, until his appointment to the federal bench in 2011. During the 111th Congress, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton recommended Boasberg to fill a judicial vacancy on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On June 17, 2010, President Barack Obama formally nominated Boasberg to the district court for the District of Columbia. Boasberg was confirmed on March 14, 2011 by a 96–0 vote. He received his commission on March 17, 2011. He became the chief judge on March 17, 2023.
Boasberg is considered a feeder judge, sending numerous clerks to the Supreme Court.

### Appointment to United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

On February 7, 2014, Chief Justice John G. Roberts announced that he would appoint Boasberg to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a term starting May 18, 2014 to a seat being vacated by Reggie Walton. His term began May 18, 2014. On December 20, 2019, the FISC announced he will replace the presiding judge FISC January 1, 2020 and elevated to preside. His term as presiding judge and judge of the FISC ended on May 19, 2021.

### Appointment to Alien Terrorist Removal court

In 2020, he was appointed to the United States Alien Terrorist Removal Court and designated chief judge. His term ended in 2025.

### Notable rulings
#### Osama Bin Laden photos

On April 26, 2012, Boasberg ruled that the public had no right to view government photos of a deceased Osama bin Laden. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, had filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but were unsuccessful in convincing Boasberg that FOIA rights outweighed national-security factors.

#### Hillary Clinton emails

On August 22, 2016, Boasberg ordered the release of over 14,000 emails found in the United States Department of State correspondence of Hillary Clinton by the FBI during an investigation of Clinton's private server. These emails were requested by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, because the FBI had indicated that emails were work-related and not entirely private as Clinton had previously said.

#### Trump tax returns

On August 18, 2017, Boasberg dismissed a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which had sued the IRS under FOIA seeking President Donald Trump's personal tax returns from 2010 to the present to be released. Boasberg concluded that because personal tax returns are confidential, they may only be obtained either by permission from Trump himself or if Congress' joint committee on taxation signed off to allow the disclosure.

#### Medicaid work rules

On March 27, 2019, Boasberg blocked a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid in Arkansas and Kentucky.

#### Dakota Access Pipeline

On March 25, 2020, Boasberg ordered a sweeping new environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
In a subsequent decision on July 6, 2020, he vacated an easement to cross the Missouri River pending completion of the environmental review and ordered the pipeline to be emptied within 30 days. On August 5, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the ruling regarding the easement; however, the judges vacated the order to empty the pipeline and asked the Army Corps of Engineers to submit a follow-up brief on whether they would allow continued pipeline operation without the easement.

#### North Atlantic right whale

On April 9, 2020, Boasberg issued an opinion finding that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it issued a biological opinion in 2014 allowing for the accidental killings of North Atlantic right whales, of which only about 400 remain as of April 8, 2020; by the American lobster fishery, which consists of seven areas spanning the east coast from Maine to North Carolina.

#### Deportations

In early 2025, the Trump administration began deporting Venezuelan nationals alleged to be members of Tren de Aragua, citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as justification. However, on March 15, 2025, Boasberg issued a 14-day restraining order, stating that he did not believe federal law permits the Trump administration to bypass removal proceedings in this manner. Specifically, Boasberg noted there is no historical precedent for this kind of deportation when Congress has not declared war. In response, Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized Boasberg. Though Boasberg verbally ordered that any planes in the air carrying those covered by his order be turned back and those individuals returned to the US, the Trump administration allowed flights carrying migrants from Venezuela to proceed to El Salvador, possibly violating the court order.
Trump border czar Tom Homan said that the Trump administration completed the deportations despite the court order because Boasberg's order was made when the planes were above international waters after departing the United States. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Boasberg's order "had no lawful basis [...] A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier". Leavitt also expressed doubts about "whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a written order", while the Trump administration argued in court that "an oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction".

## Personal life

Boasberg married Elizabeth Leslie Manson in 1991. His brother, Tom Boasberg, succeeded Michael Bennet as Superintendent of Denver Public Schools after Colorado Governor Bill Ritter appointed Bennet to the United States Senate in January 2009.
He is an aficionado of William Shakespeare's plays. In February 2018, he played a crown prosecutor in The Trial of Hamlet that was presented at the Shakespeare Theatre Company.