US judge rules he could hold Trump administration in contempt
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 16 April 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A US judge has ruled there is "probable cause" to find the Trump administration in contempt of court, after it violated an order against deporting Venezuelan migrants under an obscure wartime law. Judge James Boasberg said the government had shown "willful disregard" of his verbal order to turn around the deportation flights.
Also in the programme: The UN's top non-proliferation official says Iran is not far from developing a nuclear weapon; our BBC correspondent visits newly uncovered secret prisons in Bangladesh; and a pioneering album fuses orchestral music with authentic animal sounds recorded in the wild.
(Phot credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. It's coming to you live from London. My name's Paul Henley. |
| 0:10.7 | A federal judge in the US has ruled that the Trump administration willfully ignored a court order to turn back deportation flights. |
| 0:19.1 | Proceedings have been launched to determine whether to hold President Trump in contempt of court. |
| 0:24.7 | The judge has given the government a week to respond. |
| 0:27.5 | Nomiya Iqbal is North America correspondent for the BBC, |
| 0:31.4 | and she's been speaking to me from Washington, D.C. |
| 0:34.2 | She told me the judge had said he hadn't made his decision lightly. He did. Now, Judge |
| 0:39.4 | Boasberg just to remind is the top judge in Washington, D.C. He's been pressing the Trump |
| 0:44.3 | administration for weeks asking why did it send more than 200 people, mainly Venezuelans, |
| 0:49.1 | out of the U.S., dump them in a Salvadorian prison without any due process, and also when he had ordered them not to do so. |
| 0:56.7 | The Trump administration has been accused of basically refusing to give any details, really sort of pushing back at the judge. |
| 1:05.4 | And so we've got to this point now where Mr. Boasberg, he grilled a Department of Justice lawyer and suggested |
| 1:12.2 | that the government had acted in bad faith and did all this intentionally and used pretty strong |
| 1:16.5 | language saying the Trump administration knowingly and willfully breached a court order. |
| 1:22.8 | Mr. Bozberg has been targeted by Donald Trump as a result. He's called him a radical lefty, |
| 1:27.1 | a troublemaker. He's often what a radical lefty, a troublemaker. |
| 1:28.1 | He's often what he calls judges who don't side with him. He even said he should be impeached. |
| 1:32.0 | But the judge's point is you can't do this without explaining why you've done it and what exactly you've done. |
| 1:39.5 | So what happens next? |
| 1:41.9 | Well, this really escalates a showdown between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary. |
| 1:47.5 | Now, content fines are rare because amongst many things, Bozberg will now have to figure out which official or officials should have acted and what they should have done. |
| 1:56.0 | He's given the government a week to rectify its actions, give more details, or he says he will hold hearings |
... |
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