WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court for ignoring his instructions to turn around planes of Venezuelan deportees dubbed gang members to an El Salvador prison.

Judge James Boasberg’s ruling comes a day after the White House press secretary declared that administration officials had complied with all court orders.

“Rather than comply with the court’s order, the government continued the hurried removal operation,” on March 15, wrote Boasberg in his Wednesday opinion. “The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it.”

A White House spokesman said it would appeal immediately.

“The president is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country,” said Steven Cheung, the White House communications director.

The ruling sets up a seismic legal showdown between an unrelenting judge and a defiant Trump administration, which has prioritized following the president’s executive directives over a flurry of judicial mandates.

Boasberg originally imposed a 14-day temporary restraining order halting the removals of alleged members of Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act, expressing concerns about the lack of due process and the unprecedented application of a wartime law. Despite that order, the Trump administration proceeded with its deportation flights to the Central American country, arguing that the planes had departed before Boasberg’s order was finalized.

In his latest ruling, Boasberg offered the administration a quick way out of contempt proceedings: Reasserting custody of the hundreds who were removed and allowing them to challenge their designation through court hearings.

“The government would not need to release any of those individuals, nor would it need to transport them back to the homeland,” Boasberg wrote.

If the Trump administration declines that option, Boasberg said he would proceed to identify individuals responsible for ignoring his order to bring back the planes of hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

Earlier this month, when Boasberg probed Deputy Attorney General Drew Ensign for a list of specific names who Ensign communicated with about the original restraining order, Ensign listed Department of Homeland Security attorneys James Percival, a Floridian, and Joseph N. Mazzara, as well as James L. Bischoff, an assistant legal adviser for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department.

While federal rules require the contempt proceedings be prosecuted by a government attorney, Boasberg said he would find another suitable attorney if the government declines to appoint one.

Conservatives swiftly lambasted Boasberg’s opinion and suggested the Department of Justice should quash it.

“That is an invalid order, an abuse of judicial authority, and act of blatant arrogance by Judge Boasberg,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court already ruled that D.C. was the wrong venue for Texas-housed deportees to litigate their case, leaving Boasberg without jurisdiction over the matter.

“The Justice Department should take that referral and deep six it. Moreover, DOJ should then file an ethical complaint against Boasberg for his defiance of the Supreme Court and his actions in continuing a case over which he was told he had no jurisdiction,” von Spakovsky said.

Another contempt proceeding looms

Boasberg is just one of two federal judges who have been actively deliberating holding Trump administration officials in contempt of court for defying their orders on deportations.

Maryland Judge Paula Xinis has also admonished the Department of Justice for failing to show how it has attempted to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the administration originally conceded was sent accidentally to El Salvador.

The Department of Homeland Security determined the Maryland resident was a member of the MS-13 gang in part because he “failed to present evidence to rebut that assertion,” according to a government filing, but Garcia was never charged with a crime.

“The record reflects the defendants have done nothing at all,” declared Xinis in her Tuesday order to the government to produce expedited evidence in Garcia’s case.

Xinis has set an April 30 deadline for the government to show what — if anything — it has done in good faith to facilitate Garcia’s release from El Salvador as ordered by the Supreme Court, even as the attorney general remains defiant.

“He is not coming back to our country,” Bondi said during a press conference Wednesday morning. “That’s the end of the story … There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None. None.”

A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to offer an immediate comment on the Boasberg ruling or field questions on the record about Xinis’ edict.

Democrats seemed heartened by the ruling, with hopes that it would at least slow the administration’s rush toward summary removals of migrants.

“If the courts do not enforce their orders, they’re doomed,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, in an interview before the Boasberg ruling. “If a court declines to enforce its clear orders, then they don’t exist as the third branch of government.”

Still, the contempt option is considered a last resort mechanism for most judges, since they are largely symbolic and often fail to withstand further challenges.

“What happens is they are almost never allowed to carry through, because the appeals courts come in and more or less always save the government,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, a libertarian think tank.

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