A Department of Justice whistleblower blasted President Donald Trump’s legal enforcer Emil Bove for telling federal prosecutors they might need to say “f— you” and ignore federal court orders they didn’t like.
Bove—who was previously Trump’s criminal defense attorney—was serving as the DOJ’s third-highest ranking official when he called a meeting with prosecutors on March 14 to tell them that Trump would be invoking the Alien Enemies Act, the DOJ’s former immigration chief Erez Reuveni told 60 Minutes.
The 200-year-old law allows the president to rapidly expel citizens of countries with which the U.S. is at war. The president planned to deport about 250 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega prison even though war hadn’t been declared, and Bove was expecting legal pushback.
During the meeting Bove emphasized that those planes needed “to take off, no matter what,” Reuveni told 60 Minutes.
“Then after a pause, he also told all in attendance: And if some court should issue an order preventing that, we may have to consider telling that court, ‘F— you,’” he said.
Reuveni, who at the time was acting deputy director of the DOJ’s immigration section, said that when he heard that, he felt like “a bomb had gone off.”
“Here is the number three official using expletives to tell career attorneys that we may just have to consider disregarding federal court orders,” he said.
Senate Republicans have since confirmed Bove to a lifetime federal appellate judgeship.
The next day, lawyers for the prisoners sued, and Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, asked the government’s lawyer Drew Ensign whether the planes were leaving that weekend. Ensign said he didn’t know.
It was a “stunning” moment, Reuveni said, because Ensign was at the same meeting as Reuveni where Bove said the planes had to take off no matter what.
“It is the highest, most egregious violation of a lawyer’s code of ethics to mislead a court with intent,” he said.
During the hearing, Boasberg issued an order instructing the government not to remove anyone and to return anyone who was already in the air. Reuveni sent an email to the agencies involved informing them of the judge’s decision, but five hours later the planes—which had taken off during the hearing—landed in El Salvador.
“And then it really hit me,” Reuveni said. “It’s like, we really did tell the court, ‘Screw you.’ We really did just tell the courts, ‘We don’t care about your order.’”
Later it emerged that one of the prisoners, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, had been deported by mistake. Instead of returning him, which is what normally happens in that situation, a superior told Reuveni to argue against bringing Abrego Garcia back by telling a judge that the Maryland fateher was an MS-13 gang member and a terrorist.
“I responded up the chain of command, no way. That is not correct,” Reuveni said. “That is not factually correct. It is not legally correct. That is a lie. And I cannot sign my name to that brief.”
After he refused to sign, he was fired, bringing his 15-year career at the DOJ to an end, and filed a whistleblower disclosure in June.
Bove, Ensign, and Attorney General Pam Bondi declined to be interviewed by 60 Minutes. In a statement to the program, Bove said Reuveni’s statements were “a mix of falsehood and wild distortions of reality.”
The Daily Beast has also reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.
Also in June, Bove was nominated for a federal appellate judgeship. During his confirmation hearings, he testified that he had never advised a DOJ attorney to violate a court order.
When Sen. Adam Schiff pushed Bove on whether he had ever suggested telling the courts “f— you” in any manner, Bove said he couldn’t recall.
Abrego Garcia was eventually returned to the U.S. after the Supreme Court ruled that the government needed to facilitate his return but is facing new deportation proceedings.
The Venezuelan prisoners were freed as part of an agreement between El Salvador and Venezuela.
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