WASHINGTON — A U.S. District Court judge in Washington on Monday told attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice they needed to provide a written case by noon Tuesday for why they could not reveal specific details about flights they used to deport 261 alleged gang members to El Salvador this weekend.

“If what you’re saying is, it’s classified and you can’t tell me, then you’re going to need to make a good showing,” Judge James Boasberg said, according to an account of the proceeding shared by a reporter with The Guardian.

During the hearing, a Justice Department lawyer declined to answer questions about the flights — like how many there were and what time they took off — citing national security secrecy.

“The government cannot — and will not — be forced to answer sensitive questions of national security and foreign relations in a rushed posture without orderly briefing and a showing that these questions are somehow material to a live issue,” wrote Drew Ensign, the deputy assistant attorney general in a brief filed before the hearing.

Boasberg ordered Trump administration attorneys to appear at the fact-finding hearing to clarify details about its weekend deportation flights and whether they violated his court order.

Boasberg, an appointee of President Obama confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate, issued a temporary restraining order on Saturday against Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The judge verbally ordered the two planes back to the U.S., but they continued on and landed in El Salvador.

On Monday, the Department of Justice in a letter to the Clerk of the Court of the United States Court of Appeals requested that the case be reassigned to a different judge. Ensign referred to Boasman’s actions as a “hasty public inquiry into these sensitive national security matters—with no contemplated protections against disclosure of operational details ... ”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier Monday there are questions about whether Boasberg’s verbal order carried the same weight as his written one, which came about 40 minutes later, around 7:25 p.m. on Saturday evening.

“An oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction,” wrote Ensign, the deputy assistant attorney general who filed the president’s case. “Written orders are crucial because they clarify the bounds of permissible conduct.”

Boasberg appeared unmoved by that argument during Monday’s hearing, according to The Guardian.

“The idea that because my written order was pithier so it could be disregarded? That’s one heck of a stretch I think,” Boasberg told Trump’s lawyers.

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