The back and forth between a federal judge and the Trump administration over the timing of two flights it arranged last weekend deporting a group of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under the extraordinary powers of a wartime statute will last at least another day.
The judge in the case, James E. Boasberg, has given the Justice Department until noon on Thursday to respond to his demand for the information, which he originally wanted by noon on Wednesday.
But two hours before that deadline, Justice Department lawyers made an emergency request to push it back. While Judge Boasberg granted the lawyers an additional 24 hours, he wrote in an order that the grounds they had offered for the delay “at first blush are not persuasive” — and even took a swipe at the department for the last-minute request.
Judge Boasberg has asked the government to tell him — under seal if necessary — what time the planes took off from U.S. soil and from where, what time they left U.S. airspace and what time they landed. Much of this information appears to already be available in public flight databases, but the judge is seeking an official record from the administration.
The judge is trying to determine whether the Trump administration violated his order not to deport the immigrants on the flights, which the administration has denied.
(A third plane also flew to El Salvador on Saturday but it has not figured in the dispute between the judge and the administration because officials say that the immigrants on board were removed under traditional immigration practices, not under the wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.)
From the moment Judge Boasberg, the chief judge in Federal District Court in Washington, temporarily stopped the Trump administration from using the act to deport immigrants with little or no due process, the decision outraged Mr. Trump, his aides and his allies.
After the president called for Judge Boasberg to be impeached, a Republican congressman filed articles of impeachment against him on Tuesday.
Then, on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has taken an unusually personal involvement in the case, went on Fox News and accused Judge Boasberg of overstepping his authority by seeking to exert control over Mr. Trump’s foreign policy agenda.
Justice Department lawyers took the same approach in a new filing Wednesday evening seeking to pause Judge Boasberg’s temporary injunction over the deportation flights, framing his decision as one in which the judiciary had encroached on executive branch authorities.
In reality, however, Judge Boasberg is considering a different question — one related to Mr. Trump’s own exercise of power. He is trying to determine whether the president violated several provisions of the Alien Enemies Act when he invoked the law to deport the Venezuelan immigrants without a hearing or any judicial review.
That underlying question, which will be discussed in depth at a court hearing on Friday, is separate from the issue of whether the government will comply with Judge Boasberg’s demands for information about the flights.
The Justice Department’s attempt to push off the judge’s original deadline was not the only step officials had taken in recent days to try to avoid handing over that information
Earlier this week, department lawyers sought to cancel a hearing where they were supposed to talk about the flights in open court. In a highly unusual move, they also tried to have Judge Boasberg removed from the case altogether.
When they filed their emergency request asking for a stay on Wednesday morning, the court papers used bombastic language attacking Judge Boasberg. The department lawyers described the judge’s demand for the flight data as “a picayune dispute over the micromanagement of immaterial fact-finding.”
In addition to asking for a stay, the Justice Department has also said it is considering invoking what is known as the state secrets privilege to get around giving the flight information to Judge Boasberg. That doctrine can sometimes allow the government to shield information from being used in court cases if it jeopardizes national security.
In his order granting the administration an additional day, Judge Boasberg pointed out that if Justice Department lawyers intended to invoke that privilege, they would have to explain why it was required.
“This court is obligated to determine whether the circumstances are appropriate for the claim of privilege,” he wrote.
