A federal judge on Monday said he is seeking testimony from a former Justice Department attorney-turned-whistleblower in an inquiry over whether Trump administration officials should be referred for prosecution for disobeying a court order that temporarily barred two airplanes carrying Venezuelan detainees from proceeding to El Salvador.
In a confrontation between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary, revived after a months-long delay for appeals, Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of the District of Columbia has scheduled the whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, to appear in court on Dec. 15.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that Boasberg’s March 15 order not to remove more than 100 detainees to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act was ambiguous and that officials did not intentionally defy it.
But Reuveni has accused Justice Department officials of planning to knowingly defy court orders. In a report filed to Congress in June, Reuveni accused Emil Bove — a former top department official who previously served as a Trump defense attorney — of telling lawyers handling the case that the planes needed to take off no matter what.
At a meeting the day before Boasberg’s order, according to Reuveni’s report to Congress, “Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘f— you’ and ignore” an order barring the migrants’ removal.”
Bove has denied Reuveni’s account. Trump nominated him in May to be a federal appeals court judge, and he was confirmed in July.
Boasberg’s inquiry comes in a civil case against the Trump administration brought by some of the detainees who were on the two flights.
On Monday, Justice Department lawyers filed a declaration in the case by Bove, who said he’d “contributed to privileged legal advice” given to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem regarding the decision to continue the flights.
Bove said his advice was communicated through Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Joseph N. Mazzara, acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, who also have given declarations in the case acknowledging they gave legal advice to Noem but not specifying what it was. Bove’s declaration, which noted the Justice Department had not authorized him “to disclose privileged information,” provided few details.
Justice Department lawyers filed a declaration by Noem on Friday, saying she was the one who decided the flights should continue, but it also offered little more detail.
Boasberg, who has said he intends to learn why his instructions were not followed, said in his order seeking Reuveni’s testimony that Noem’s “declaration does not provide enough information for the Court to determine whether her decision was a willful violation of the Court’s Order.”
Boasberg’s order also seeks testimony next week from Drew Ensign, the Justice Department lawyer to whom Boasberg gave his instruction in March that “any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States.”
Administration officials did not return the migrants to the U.S. and instead handed them over to the Salvadoran government, which held them in its notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. Months later, the Venezuelan detainees were transferred to Venezuela as part of a prisoner exchange.
Reuveni has accused Ensign of misleading the court about the migrant flights. Ensign also has come under fire in other cases from federal judges, including a Trump-appointed judge in September who said Ensign made false claims in court to justify a “hasty operation” to deport dozens of Guatemalan children in the middle of the night over the Labor Day weekend.
Boasberg’s probe over the potential contempt referral resumed last month after a seven-month delay as appeals were heard. In March, Trump took to social media to call Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator.” The president’s demand to impeach Boasberg drew a rare rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Boasberg was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve on the D.C. Superior Court in 2002. President Barack Obama tapped him for the U.S. District Court in 2011, and he was confirmed by the Senate in a 96-0 vote.
The Supreme Court ultimately voided Boasberg’s order barring the removals, saying he lacked jurisdiction. But Boasberg has said a contempt inquiry remains warranted because officials defied his order before the Supreme Court’s ruling, and “such disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies.”
Boasberg has said if he were to refer the matter for prosecution and the Justice Department declined the case he could appoint another lawyer to handle it.
The post Judge calls for Justice Dept. whistleblower to testify in migrant planes case appeared first on Washington Post.
