A top Justice Department official nominated by President Donald Trump to fill a federal appeals court vacancy allegedly suggested the Trump administration should defy judicial orders that sought to restrict their aggressive efforts to deport undocumented immigrants earlier this year, according to a whistleblower complaint from a fired DOJ career official.
The 27-page complaint, provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department’s top watchdog and obtained by ABC News, alleges that Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and other top DOJ officials strategized how they could mislead courts regarding the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and potentially ignore judges’ rulings outright.
The allegations from Erez Reuveni — who was fired from the department in April after he appeared in federal court in Maryland and admitted to a judge that the government had mistakenly deported accused MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador — were delivered to the Senate on the eve of a confirmation hearing for Bove to serve on the powerful 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Mr. Reuveni’s disclosures detail violations of law, rules or regulations, and the abuse of authority by DOJ and White House personnel, as well as the creation of substantial and specific health and safety threats to noncitizens,” Reuveni’s attorneys said in the letter.
“These high-level governmental personnel knowingly and willfully defied court orders, directed their subordinate attorneys to make misrepresentations to courts, and engaged in a scheme to withhold relevant information from the court to advance the Administration’s priority of deporting noncitizens,” the letter said.
Reuveni’s whistleblower complaint details several internal meetings where he alleges Bove and other officials debated over how they could evade legal scrutiny in implementing President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process. At a meeting on March 14, the complaint alleges that Bove said the department should consider saying “f— you” to the courts and “ignore any such court order.”
“Mr. Reuveni was stunned by Bove’s statement because, to Mr. Reuveni’s knowledge, no one in DOJ leadership — in any Administration — had ever suggested the Department of Justice could blatantly ignore court orders,” the letter says, repeating the expletive. “Mr. Reuveni was in disbelief, because, on the contrary, the Department of Justice consistently advises its clients of their obligation to follow court orders, not to ignore them.”
In a statement to The New York Times responding to the letter — which was first reported by the paper — Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche described Reuveni as a “disgruntled former employee” and said that his accusations about Bove and other DOJ leadership “are utterly false.”
“I was at the meeting described in the [New York Times] article and at no time did anyone suggest a court order should not be followed,” Blanche said.
The allegations by Reuveni fall at the center of an effort by D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg to potentially hold top administration officials in contempt for violating a March 15 order to turn a plane of undocumented immigrants deported under the Alien Enemies Act around before it arrived in El Salvador. That inquiry was put on a temporary hold by an appeals court panel in the D.C. Circuit in April.
Bove, according to Reuveni’s account, made clear to officials the day before Boasberg’s order that the planes carrying the deported individuals “needed to take off no matter what,” and that is when he made the comment about potentially defying court orders.
Officials in the room “looked stunned” following Bove’s alleged remarks, and those in the room left the meeting still “understanding that DOJ would tell DHS to follow all court orders,” according to Reuveni.
In Reuveni’s telling, the meeting was just one in a series of instances that demonstrated efforts by White House and DOJ leadership to defy court orders “through lack of candor, deliberate delay, and disinformation.”
“Discouraging clients from engaging in illegal conduct is an important part of the role of a lawyer,” the letter states. “Mr. Reuveni tried to do so and was thwarted, threatened, fired, and publicly disparaged for both doing his job and telling the truth to the court.”
Senate Democrats are expected to highlight Reuveni’s account at Bove’s judicial confirmation hearing Wednesday to bolster their claims that Bove, who previously served as President Trump’s personal defense attorney, has abused his position at DOJ to advance Trump’s political agenda.
“These serious allegations, from a career Justice Department lawyer who defended the first Trump Administration’s immigration policies, not only speak to Mr. Bove’s failure to fulfill his ethical obligations as a lawyer, but demonstrate that his activities are part of a broader pattern by President Trump and his allies to undermine the Justice Department’s commitment to the rule of law,” Senate Judiciary ranking member Dick Durbin said in a statement reacting to Reuveni’s letter.
“And I implore my Senate Republican colleagues: do not turn a blind eye to the dire consequences of confirming Mr. Bove to a lifetime position as a circuit court judge,” Durbin said.
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