Trump grand jury gets new judge
Turnover unlikely to bring a major new approach
WASHINGTON — The windows of the chambers of the chief judge of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia overlook the Capitol grounds, a stately vista that turned into a crime scene on Jan. 6, 2021, when a pro-trump mob attacked Congress in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
The chief judge, Beryl A. Howell, has spent considerable time in the two years since ruminating on what happened outside her windows, including crafting a series of secret rulings that have shaped the pace and trajectory of the inquiry into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to cling to power. But her term ends this week as a new chief judge, James E. Boasberg, takes over the secondfloor offices at the courthouse — and a key behind-the-scenes role overseeing the grand jury that is hearing testimony in the investigation.
The two jurists will hold a passing-the-gavel ceremony on Friday, dropping Boasberg into tangled disputes over executive privilege and other grand jury issues central to the federal special counsel investigation into the events surrounding Jan. 6, along with Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office.
There is no obvious reason to believe that the turnover will bring a major new approach: Both are experienced jurists and Obama appointees, and in handing down sentences to ordinary Jan. 6 defendants, neither has been a particularly harsh nor usually lenient outlier.
Still, as their colleague Judge Randolph D. Moss noted, analyzing what the turnover could mean for oversight of the investigation is hard because “even the other judges on the court don’t have much of an insight into what has been going on in the grand jury.”
But some word has filtered out from the grand jury room that Howell dispatched with claims of privilege that Trump mounted in an unsuccessful attempt to block testimony by two aides to former Vice President Mike Pence, Greg Jacob and Marc Short. (Howell rejected a request by The New York Times and Politico to unseal her executive privilege rulings and materials related to the Jan. 6 grand jury.)
The turnover comes at a delicate time for Trump, who in addition to the federal investigations being overseen by Jack Smith, the special counsel, faces possible indictment soon on unrelated state charges in New York and is also under scrutiny by a prosecutor in Georgia examining efforts to reverse his election loss there.
Howell expressed confidence in her colleague while cautiously avoiding specific grand-jury issues that remain secret.
“The grand jury presents oftentimes novel issues and issues that deal with high-profile individuals, generating an enormous strobe light of press attention,” she said. “Judge Boasberg has the seasoning on the bench, the legal expertise, and the ability to manage and juggle multiple matters that makes him very well suited to be the next chief judge.”
Boasberg praised Howell, who will stay on the bench as a regular district court judge after the conclusion of her legally prescribed seven-year term as its chief. In addition to supervising grand juries, the chief judge administers the U.S. District Court system in the capital. That meant issuing dozens of orders that created rules for the coronavirus pandemic, like postponing jury trials, wearing masks and convening remote hearings.
“I think she did a terrific job of guiding the court through COVID, and the dislocation that it brought,” Boasberg said of Howell. “She also has had to contend with two complicated special counsel investigations and all of the grand jury work that that entails. We were lucky to have her at the helm during this period.”
Boasberg, 60, grew up in Washington and has been a judge for more than 20 years. He has bipartisan credentials: President George W. Bush appointed him in 2002 to the D.C. Superior Court, which handles state court-style criminal and civil cases in Washington, and President Barack Obama elevated him in 2011 to the U.S. District Court.