From Chief Judge Boasberg's Opinion Quashing Grand Jury Subpoena Related to Fed Chair Jerome Powell

For more on the opinion, see this post.

Comments

[MollyGodiva]

Oh no Boasberg, don't give them any ideas.

[AmosArch]

So I guess Boasberg and a few other judges have formed the Trump Circuit Court where they somehow get the lionshare of the Trump cases but at the same time their names are rarely featured in easy to find places to hide the fact that the rulings are mostly coming from a tiny cabal.

[Eugene Volokh]

AmosArch: 1. They're not the Circuit Court; their decisions will be reviewed by Circuit Courts.

2. What do you mean by "rarely featured in easy to find places"? They're right there in the opinions, of course; but if you're just referring to news coverage, wasn't Boasberg's name included in stories about this very decision in the New York Times (in the subhead), the Washington Post (paragraph 2), CNN (in paragraph 3), and more?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Article 3 says that criminal trials shall be in the STATE where the crime occurred, and if not in the state, wherever Congress shall decree.

A DC District Court is going to inherently be a political quagmire, regardless of who’s in charge of Congress, who is president, who appointed the judge. DC too Political.

What congress should do is decree that any case arising within the district, which is not a state, should be randomly assigned to any other federal district court in the country. Specify some mathematical means of doing this to make it unrigable, and end this foolishness.

[bobsnort]

What purpose could that possibly serve?

Do you have an actual objection to Boasberg's opinion on its legal merits, or are you just mad that Trump doesn't get to harass his political enemies unfettered by the law?

[John Mosby]

'what purpose could that possibly serve?'

Well you do have a point as to judges. Even the Armpit District of Idaho is going to have a bunch of Gramscian long-marchers on its bench.

However, as to juries, imagine DC with a majority-Republican jury pool. It's easy if you try. Ethnically, the District is becoming one-third each B, W, H. Still vast majority Democrat, but could easily change with the combined effects of gentrification, splitting the Hispanic vote, and remote work. Would you want an R jury nullifying [insert favorite D policy here]? Would you want R voters and councillors constantly passing district ordinances to frustrate [insert favorite D policy here]?

The Framers wanted the seat of government to be outside a State so that no State could hold the fedgov hostage. Back then, they were mostly thinking literal cannonballs and bayonets. Nowadays, it's ballots, jury verdicts, local ordinances, and other lawfare. Probably worse, since a fedgov under physical siege could eventually get the US Army and other states' militias to relieve the siege. Lifting the lawfare siege is a much more onerous task. CC, JSM

[David Nieporent]

Article 3 says that criminal trials shall be in the STATE where the crime occurred, and if not in the state, wherever Congress shall decree.

The sixth amendment says also that the jury must come from the state and district where the crime occurred, regardless of where the trial is held.

Also, directly from the Declaration of Independence:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

[thesafesurfer]

Boasberg claims that Powell is subpoenaed just because the government might as well investigate him for mail fraud because someone once saw him send a letter….and you, professor, call this a substantive argument.

ALL THE WHILE, both you and Boasberg completely and utterly ignore the fact that Jerome Powell spent $2.5 billion dollars "RENOVATING" (not building) the Federal Reserve Building. Baseball stadiums are built for less. Globe Life Field cost $1.5 billion for God's sake.

You agree with Boasberg that it is outrageous to investigate the waste of $2.5 billion dollars. SHAME ON YOU! SHAME ON BOASBERG!

How much Trump Derangement Syndrome oozes through your veins that you call it legitimate to outlaw an investigation into the waste of billions of precious taxpayer funds. Where sir is the baseball stadium that Powell built? Where is the accountability for spending such an obscene sum? Where is your shame in supporting Boasberg's argument that the government is persecuting Powell for receiving mail?

[Zarniwoop]

ALL THE WHILE, both you and Boasberg completely and utterly ignore the fact that Jerome Powell spent $2.5 billion dollars "RENOVATING" (not building) the Federal Reserve Building. Baseball stadiums are built for less. Globe Life Field cost $1.5 billion for God's sake.

Sounds like you've never been within a light-year of [historic] building renovation.

Or new construction, for that matter.

[Davy C]

Any building less than a hundred years old shouldn't be considered "historic" in the first place unless it's got some actual history behind it.

[ReaderY]

The cost was originally estimated at 1.9 billion. Both the original estimate and the degree of cost increase are simply not unusual for a government project.

What you’re doing is a bit like shouting loudly that surely he must have been committing a crime because he stopped his car suddenly right in the middle of the street, it’s a smoking gun of criminal intent, without bothering to mention either that there was a red light, or that it is in fact quite normal for people to stop their cars at red lights.

[not guilty]

AmosArch, Judge Boasberg is currently the presiding judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Grand Jury matters are routinely assigned to the presiding judge.

I am curious. Have you read the subject order or not?

[BrotherMovesOn]

He wouldn't understand it. And he ain't bothering.
Orders against Trump 'bad'.
All he needs.

[Stepped Reckoner]

Do you mean chief judge? A presiding judge is something very different.

In any event, where are you getting this premise that motions to quash Grand Jury subpoenae "are routinely assigned to the presiding [by which I think you meant chief] judge" in the District of Columbia District Court? I would certainly agree that Grand Jury matters are routinely assigned to the chief judge in most District Courts, usually under Local Criminal Rule 6.1, and the District Court for D.C. is no different. But that is in the sense that the Chief Judge is generally formally supervising all grand juries and signs all their subpoenae. Don't confuse that with motions to quash such a subpoena. In other Districts the general practice is while the Chief Judge SIGNS such a subpoena, a motion to quash such a subpoena is randomly assigned to any judge OTHER THAN the Chief Judge. (For example, Local Criminal Rule 6.1(e) in Detroit (E.D. Mich) states this explicitly, and even explains it in an official Comment.) What is the usual practice in the D.C.? Is it the opposite?

[Tilted]

Local Criminal Rule 6.1

https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/sites/dcd/files/local_rules/Local%20Rules%20AUG_2025.pdf

[SRG2]

where they somehow get the lionshare of the Trump cases

I know. Hard to understand why the DC circuit gets so many of these Federal cases originating in DC. Seems suspicious. I'd have expected most government cases to originate in Hawaii, or perhaps USVI.

Meanwhile, when the Executive posts these:

“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell has done it again!!! He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair. He is costing our Country TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS . . . . Put another way, ‘Too Late’ is a TOTAL LOSER, and our Country is paying the price!”

“‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell is costing our Country Hundreds of Billions of Dollars. He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government . . . . TOO LATE’s an American Disgrace!”

even the most hardened cultist would think they're less elegant than "will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?" but the intention , if not exactly equivalent, is nonetheless well understood by Narkomyust.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Let’s take this quote seriously — what criteria is necessary to justify the government investigating someone for mail or wire fraud?

while a case involving Congress may be rare, cases involving mail and wire fraud are not.

So what criteria does the government have to prove in order to investigate mail or wire fraud? With this ruling hold up if they were instead investigating yee olde drug dealer and their suspicion of laundering?

[bobsnort]

The word you are looking for is "evidence." The prosecution needs to provide evidence.

In the case of mail fraud, a typical piece of evidence would be a piece of mail sent by the accused, which makes fraudulent claims; or the testimony of a victim who claims to have received such a piece of mail.

In a case that hinges on an accusation of lying to Congress, the prosecution would typical be able to cite a particular untrue statement made by the accused to Congress. But they didn't or couldn't do that. What does that tell us about the government's motives?

[Zarniwoop]

And at a bare minimum, for the hypo of "an accusation of lying to Congress", that the accused had testified to Congress in the first place.

[ReaderY]

The question is what criteria are needed for a subpoena to survive a motion to quash. For that, a necessary condition for a subpoena to survive a motion to quash is some evidence that provides some reasonable suspicion both that a crime was commited and that the requested evidence has a bearing on that crime.

Here, as the judge found, there was no evidence at all that a crime was committed. All the DoJ said it had on Powell was that a Federal Reserve building renovation project had gone over budget, and he had testified to Congress about it. As the judge noted, building projects go over budget and people testify to Congress every day. And as the judge very aptly summed it up, the DoJ “evidence” gives no more reason to suspect Powell committed fraud or perjury than the fact that once saw Powell send a letter would suggest he committed mail fraud.

[F.D. Wolf]

The grand jury occupies a unique role in our criminal justice system. It is an investigatory body charged with the responsibility of determining whether or not a crime has been committed. Unlike this Court, whose jurisdiction is predicated on a specific case or controversy, the grand jury "can investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even just because it wants assurance that it is not." The function of the grand jury is to inquire into all information that might possibly bear on its investigation until it has identified an offense or has satisfied itself that none has occurred. As a necessary consequence of its investigatory function, the grand jury paints with a broad brush.

United States v. R. Enterprises, 498 U.S. 292, 297 (1991) (unanimously reversing Fourth Circuit's quashing of subpoena for failing to demonstrate "relevance").

Donald Trump did not issue this subpoena; a grand jury did. And while the execrable partisan Chief Judge Boasberg, who has an uncanny pattern of "randomly" assigning cases like this to himself, and who has the political outlook and temperament of the average Bluesky user, may not have any concerns about a $2 billion cost overrun and "have a feeling" that this investigation is political (unlike the myriad investigations by Democrats of Trump, I'm sure), his assessment doesn't much count for anything.

I predict this decision will not stand up on appeal. (I think there is a good possibility the parties may come to an arrangement, though this decision is too stupid to be allowed to stand as precedent).

[ReaderY]

An indictment can be quashed. Juries can be given directed verdicts. Jury verdicts can be reversed by the trial judge or on appeal or by writ of habeas corpus. It happens all the time. Having judges review a subpoena is no different.

The idea that a jury is an absolute sovereign and any interference with its decisions by any judge is a travesty may make a nice sound bite. But it’s complete bullshit so far as the actual way the legal system works in this country.

Also, if you actually believe this, why didn’t you bring it up when the Trump DoJ repeatedly went to new grand juries when previous ones refused to indict? If you really think seeking to have a grand jury’s decision overturned is unconscionable, what makes this practice acceptable? Other than an extremely flexible and ad-hoc conscience, that is.

[ReaderY]

Also, the judge did not just “have a feeling” this was political. Mr. Trump explicitly said so. Multiple times. The opinion quoted his statements saying so extensively.

As the Duke of Norfolk put it in the scene dramatizing the failed attempt to indict Sir Thomas More for bribery in Robert Bolt’s A a Man for All Seasons, “This is a horse that won’t run, Master Secretary.

[SKofNJ]

Boasberg is not only wrong, he is patently wrong. United States v. Adonisio, 410 U.S. 1, 15 (1973), states, "[Grand] jurors may act on tips, rumors, evidence offered by the prosecutor or their own personal knowledge." The case, at 13, with internal quotations omitted, also says, that a grand jury investigation is "not fully carried out until every available clue has been run down." Last, the 8th circuit has opined that "exploration or fishing is necessarily inherent and entitled to exist" in grand jury investigations. Schwimmer v. U.S. 232 Fed 855, 862-63 (1956).

[David Nieporent]

The last case, which was cited improperly enough that I'm wondering about AI (it's Schwimmer v. U.S., 232 F.2d 855 (8th Cir 1956); you got both the reporter and the jurisdiction wrong), and which of course is not binding in D.C., literally stands for the opposite proposition for which you're trying to cite it.

As to the phrase you pull from it, you strategically left the word "some" off the beginning. "Some exploration or fishing." But this quote you pull out of context is talking about the specificity of the documentary demand — since the grand jury doesn't know which documents might exist or be relevant, it is entitled to some latitude in its demands. But the 8th Circuit expressly quashed another subpoena in that very decision as an "abstract hunt for possible crime" that it characterized as a "general fishing expedition."

(The first case is U.S. v Dionisio; you got that wrong too. And while the quote you provide is accurate, it is also just a few words pulled from an opinion. Nothing in that decision suggests that a bad faith grand jury investigation is legitimate.)
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EDIT: Either my eyesight is going (editor's note: my eyesight is going) or you edited your post to change it from 6th circuit to 8th circuit, in between when I loaded the page and when I posted my comment.

[ReaderY]

The judge paraphrased Henry II’s comment “will nobody rid me of this troublesome priest?”

He should in addition have quoted from the Duke of Norfolk in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons regarding the failed attempt to indict Sir Thomas More for bribery, “This is a horse that won’t run, Master Secretary.”

[Agammamon]

Not to get into whether Boasberg is correct or not but . . . why does his name keep popping up?

Is he the only DC judge in DC?