By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A top U.S. Justice Department official tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as an appellate judge profanely pressured department attorneys to defy court orders to carry out mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally, according to a whistleblower complaint seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
The complaint against Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, which was first reported by the New York Times, was made public the day before Bove is due to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on his nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
It was submitted to the Justice Department’s Inspector General by Erez Reuveni, the former acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, who was fired in April after he admitted in a court hearing that the federal government made a mistake when it deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
Current department officials dismissed Reuveni’s statements as false, describing him as a disgruntled former employee. Bove, who served as one of Trump’s defense attorneys, could not immediately be reached for comment.
In his complaint, Reuveni said that during a March 14 meeting with senior officials, Bove told them that the government planned to deport migrants over the weekend under an 18th Century wartime powers law known as the Alien Enemies Act on one or more scheduled flights. Bove told them the planes “needed to take off no matter what,” the complaint alleged.
Bove allegedly predicted that a court might try to block the removals before they could be carried out. Bove stated that “DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order,” the complaint alleged.
“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,” the complaint said.
The next day, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the deportations. When Boasberg inquired about the status of the flights, another department official who was present during the March 14 meeting with Bove claimed he did not know the status of the planes, the complaint alleged.
That statement was “false,” the complaint said. Two planes carrying migrants deported under the wartime powers law arrived in El Salvador that day and were placed into Salvadoran custody.
Boasberg demanded that the government explain its actions. In its written response, which was signed by multiple lawyers including both Bove and Reuveni, the department denied violating the order, saying the planes had taken off before the court’s injunction was issued.
Boasberg later found probable cause to hold the government in criminal contempt and launched an investigation to determine who was responsible. A federal appeals court has paused that ruling.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who worked with Bove on Trump’s defense team, said in a statement that the claims against Bove were made by a “disgruntled former employee” who “leaked to the press in violation of ethical obligations.”
“The claims about Department of Justice leadership and the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General are utterly false,” Blanche said in a statement to Reuters.
Reuveni and his attorneys at the Government Accountability Project could not immediately be reached for further comment.
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Bove has “abused his position in numerous ways” and implored his Republican colleagues not to “turn a blind eye to the dire consequences of confirming Mr. Bove to a lifetime position as a circuit court judge.”
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis)
