While Trump Begs for Votes Out of Fear of Defeat, a Judge Asks Who Advised the Justice System to Say "Fuck You"

On September 29, 2026, at 9:30 a.m., in Courtroom 20, Brett Shumate, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, sat before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 11 judges, a full house, case number 25-5452, and the case is simply called "In re: Donald J. Trump." One question was being argued: whether U.S. District Judge James Boasberg may continue investigating who in Trump's administration deliberately defied a court order. Outside, the president was warning of defeat on the campaign trail and asking his supporters to vote as if he himself were on the ballot. Inside, the question was whether you can give a court the middle finger and get away with it.

The road there began on March 15, 2025. Boasberg temporarily barred the government from sending Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. According to the plaintiffs, his oral order also required the planes to turn around and the men not to be handed over. The flights went ahead anyway. The planes stayed in the air as if the court's voice mattered less than the agency's schedule. After that, Boasberg wanted to determine who had made that decision and whether his order had been deliberately ignored. Ever since, the government has been trying to shut that investigation down. A 3-judge panel initially sided with the government 2-1 on April 14, 2026. On June 22, the full appeals court reversed that decision and scheduled the hearing for September. Half a year of fighting over the question of whether a judge is even allowed to keep asking questions.

The sun had barely risen when the planes took off. On board: Venezuelan migrants being deported from the United States. The official justification: alleged ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. The legal basis: a presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Tren de Aragua. Die rechtliche Grundlage: eine Präsidentenproklamation, mit der der Alien Enemies Act von 1798 angewandt wurde.

But this is exactly where the story starts falling apart. The deportation of Venezuelan migrants took place between March 15 and 18, 2025, based on a presidential proclamation Donald Trump had signed on March 14, 2025. It was not published in the Federal Register until March 20, 2025. By then, the 3 GlobalX deportation flights, numbers 6143, 6145 and 6122, had long since left the airport in Harlingen, Texas.

Our legal position at the time focused precisely on that date. Under the Federal Register Act, 44 U.S.C. § 1505, provisions of general applicability must be published in the Federal Register. Without that publication, according to our legal position, the proclamation could not be applied against affected third parties as the basis for executive action. Then there is the Alien Enemies Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 21 through 24, which expressly requires a presidential proclamation. Under prior administrative practice, such a proclamation must be published before it can serve as the basis for government action against those affected.

Trump's signature is dated March 14. But what good is a signature if the proclamation had not yet been published and people were already being removed from the country on that basis? According to our legal position at the time, the proclamation became effective against those affected only upon its publication on March 20, 2025. By then, the deportation flights were already history.

Excerpt from our submission dated March 22, 2025. Because the proceedings are still ongoing, we have redacted parts of the contents and are not publishing them at this time.

Flashback: March 24, 2025

It was a hearing with real weight: A 3-judge panel met on a Monday in Washington to decide whether the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador would remain temporarily blocked, or whether President Donald Trump's controversial proclamation of March 15, 2025, could be carried out. The case reflects not only legal technicalities, but also the fundamental conflict between the executive and the judiciary over the reach of presidential power. Trump had relied on the so-called Alien Enemies Act, a nearly 230-year-old wartime law from 1798 that had been used only 3 times in U.S. history, to deport 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua by plane to the horror prison in El Salvador.

"Nazis were treated better" - Judge Patricia Millett did not hold back in her criticism at the time: "These were whole plane loads of people," she told a Justice Department attorney. "Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than what has happened here." She pointed to World War II, when there were still hearing boards that gave detainees at least a minimum level of due process.

The tone got rough during that 2-hour hearing. When DOJ attorney Drew Ensign said the comparison went too far, he stated: "We strongly object to the Nazi comparison." Millett shot back: "Of course there is no precedent - because no president has ever used this law this way." Then she added:

"You could have picked me up on Saturday and put me on a plane with no opportunity whatsoever to object - just because you claim I belong to Tren de Aragua."

Millett accused the government of failing to carefully determine whether the Venezuelans involved were actually gang members. According to the government, the men had been "thoroughly vetted" - but many family members dispute that account, and even government agencies acknowledge that a large number of the men had no criminal records in the United States.

Now back to September 29, 2026

Then came Patricia Millett. Barack Obama appointed her to this court in 2013, to the seat John Roberts had vacated when he moved to the Supreme Court in 2005. Her confirmation is itself part of the history of the fight over the courts. The Democratic majority in the Senate had just invoked the nuclear option and eliminated the 60-vote threshold for many appointments. Millett was the first to be confirmed after that change, on December 10, 2013, by a vote of 56-38. Now this very court, whose composition had been fought over so bitterly, is supposed to decide whether a government still has to take courts seriously at all. Millett had little patience that morning for polite evasions.

Shumate wanted to keep Boasberg's investigation narrow, limited to the 1 person at the end of the chain. Millett pressed him on whether only the person who made the final decision could be responsible, or whether those who advised it could be responsible as well. At the center was then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom the Justice Department had presented as the key decision-maker behind the continued deportations. Several judges asked why Boasberg should simply swallow that account without question. Judge Michelle Childs even raised the possibility that Noem could be used as a "sacrificial lamb." Millett picked up exactly there. The district court did not have to accept Noem as the only relevant figure, and anyone who helped prepare or legally recommended the decision could also have defied the court. Putting a cabinet secretary out front while the legal advisers stay in the background is an old game, and Millett was not playing along.

Then came the sentence now being passed around. So our readers can see up close what it is really like inside a courtroom like this, we documented the hearing. What follows is the exact wording.

Millett: "The district court described Secretary Noem as the purported decision-maker. But as Judge Childs just noted, the court does not have to accept her as the only relevant decision-maker. You would surely agree with me that the final decision-maker is not the only person who could have been in contempt of court. The declarations show that she received legal advice from several people at the Department of Justice. Now, if an attorney had told the Secretary, you have the legal authority to respond to the court order with a fuck you and let the people get off the planes anyway, would it be accurate to say that this attorney would have been in contempt of court just as much as the Secretary possibly was?"

• Note: Millett herself replaced the profanity with "expletive" during the hearing. "Expletive the court" is not a normal fixed expression, but a deliberately softened substitute. What it means is: "to tell the court, 'Fuck you'"

Shumate: "That's an interesting question that a prosecutor might want to investigate."

Millett: "I'm not asking you what prosecutors can investigate. I'm asking you whether contempt of court could even have been committed, so that the court can investigate, so that the court can decide whether I need to subpoena additional people. Could that include an attorney who advised someone to tell the court fuck you, disregard the order and let the people get off? From the perspective of the United States, could that possibly constitute contempt of court?"

Shumate: "I think that depends on the facts, Your Honor."

Millett: "Well, then I guess the district court needs to ask a few more questions."

Behind the harmless "That depends on the facts" lies the justification for questioning more people. Shumate wanted to close the door, Millett stuck her foot in it. A government attorney who cannot even rule out in court that giving the judiciary the middle finger might be punishable is having his worst day on the job.

Behind the exchange is an allegation made by former Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni. Then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove had allegedly said before the deportation dispute that the government might have to tell the courts "fuck you" if judges blocked its actions. Bove denied it. Today he sits as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. The man accused of advising a middle finger to the courts now wears the robe himself. From alleged whisperer of defiance to judge, few rise faster in this administration. Millett did not mention his name. You do not have to name names when everyone in the room has the same man in mind.

This is where the other side comes in. A Republican commentator described Millett as completely out of control, saying she raised her voice and repeatedly pounded the bench while going after Shumate. That side calls Boasberg's investigation a "witch hunt." The allegation against Bove, they argue, is unproven, and Millett took a general remark about possible conflicts with the courts and built a connection to Boasberg's March 15 order that has not been established. The distinction needs to be drawn cleanly. Reuveni attributed the statement to Bove, Bove denied it, and Millett did not explicitly accuse him in this passage. She posed a hypothetical question about an attorney who had advised a cabinet secretary to break the law. Critics see it as a barely concealed shot at her current colleague. That is what the argument is about.

On the substance, Shumate argued that Boasberg's approach exceeded a judge's authority and intruded on the separation of powers, and that an investigation of senior government officials could interfere with executive decision-making. Millett countered that the separation of powers works both ways. A court needs the means to enforce its own orders. Otherwise, the value of a ruling eventually depends on whether the government happens to find it convenient. This is exactly where it is decided whether a court order still carries weight or is merely a suggestion. Shumate was selling the judges their own powerlessness as respect for the separation of powers. Millett was not buying it.

This is what a hearing sounds like from the inside. Nobody sits in a quiet library exchanging prepared paragraphs. A judge cuts off the government attorney. He tries to narrow the question, she drags him back. Every hesitation becomes an answer, every dodge a clue. Every word is fought over here, and a single sentence can decide whether an investigation continues or dies. Boasberg cannot currently continue his investigation while the appeal is pending. The full court must now decide whether that block remains in place. That was what September 29 was about. The dispute has long since gone beyond 2 airplanes.

• Editor's note: We documented 3 GlobalX flights in total, but only 2 are at the center of the current contempt proceedings because Boasberg's March 15 order specifically applied to those 2 aircraft that had already taken off

What is being decided is how far a court may go when there is reason to suspect that a government deliberately defied its order. If a government treats a court order as nothing more than a recommendation, all that remains of the separation of powers is a claim on paper.

Trump has publicly attacked Boasberg for months and demanded his removal. Now an appeals court is deciding whether this judge is even allowed to keep asking questions. Outside, the campaign is underway, the president is warning of defeat and murmuring about political consequences. Inside, Patricia Millett is asking whether a government lawyer would also have to answer for advising a court to take a "fuck you." Same week, 2 places, and the exact same fear of accountability, outside before the voters, inside before a court. Washington barely needs any decoration for days like these.