Emil Bove Wanted DOJ to Ignore Court Orders, Whistleblower Says

A whistleblower complaint against Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove accuses the Trump administration official of instructing members of the Justice Department to ignore court orders that could have interfered with plans to transfer several planes of undocumented migrants to prisons in El Salvador. 

Bove is currently a nominee to become a federal circuit court judge.

According to a whistleblower complaint filed by former DOJ lawyer Erez Reuveni and obtained by The New York Times, Bove stated during a March meeting that the Justice Department would need to consider giving a big “fuck you” to the courts if they attempted to interfere with plans to transfer migrants to a foreign prison known for its human rights abuses. 

Reuveni represented the DOJ in three cases related to the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigration, and was fired after admitting in court — where he is required to tell the truth under questioning from a judge — that in April the administration illegally deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man residing in Maryland who had a protective court order barring his removal to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia, along with hundreds of others, was sent to CECOT, a notorious maximum-security prison and propaganda production center built by El Salvador’s authoritarian President Nayinb Bukele, a strauch Trump supporter. 

Abrego Garcia’s case was central to the widespread legal efforts to reverse the imprisonment and indefinite detention of those sent to El Salvador without due process. It was also the focal point of the Trump administration’s efforts to stonewall the judiciary.

According to Reiveni’s complaint, “plans of DOJ leadership to resist court orders that would impede potentially illegal efforts to deport noncitizens” were formed weeks before the deportations took place. Reiveni also alleges the DOJ lied about its deportation agenda. 

On March 15 — during a hearing over a restraining order against the deportations — Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign was asked by D.C. District Judge James Boasberg if he knew of plans to conduct removals under the Alien Enemies act “in the next 24 or 48 hours.”

Ensign told the court that he didn’t “know the answer to that question,” and requested some time to contact members of the administration to find out. The invocation of the Alien Enemies Act had been signed hours before, and during the 40-minute break granted to him by Boasberg the first two planes of migrants departed towards El Salvador. 

But according to Reuveni’s complaint, Ensign was present at a meeting that took place the day before in which Bove informed high-ranking DOJ officials that “the AEA proclamation would soon be signed and that one or more planes containing individuals subject to the AEA would be taking off over the weekend — meaning Saturday, March 15 and Sunday, March 16.” 

According to the complaint, Reuveni “reasonably believes Ensign’s statement to the court that he did not know whether AEA removals would take place ‘in the next 24 or 48 hours’ was false. Ensign had been present in the previous day’s meeting when Emil Bove stated clearly that one or more planes containing individuals subject to the AEA would be taking off over the weekend no matter what.”

The complaint suggests that Ensign’s actions in court may have been part of an open effort by the DOJ to obstruct the courts, alleging that during the same March 14 meeting, Bove discussed the possibility that “a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated,” and suggested that the “DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order.“

When it became clear that the planes had taken off, Boasberg issued a written order demanding that any further flights be canceled, and that the planes already in the air be turned around. Reuveni — monitoring the hearing through a public line — texted his supervisor, Deputy Director August Flentje, a reference to Bove’s “fuck you” comment, to which Flentje “acknowledged Bove’s comment with a joke referencing the possibility that either he or Mr. Reuveni could be fired, impliedly for reporting up their chain of command concerns that a court order had been violated.” 

The resulting court battle over the removals and allegations of legal misconduct by the administration saw the president and his allies repeatedly flout court orders — including an order from the Supreme Court to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia. Reuveni’s complaint alleges that he was told by both Flentje and Ensign that “the government was not going to answer the court’s questions about anything that happened before 7:26 p.m. on March 15, and so not to provide information about when the flights took off.” 

In April, when Reuveni was assigned to represent the government in Abrego Garcia’s case he — as stated in his complaint — “candidly and truthfully informed the court, based on the evidentiary record, that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s removal from the United States was a mistake. Later that evening, Mr. Reuveni refused directions from his superiors to file a brief misrepresenting those facts to the court.”

Reuveni was put on administrative leave the next day, and fired within a week. 

On Wednesday, Bove will face the Senate Judiciary Committee in a confirmation hearing discussing his nomination to serve as United State circuit judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), ranking Democrat on the committee, told the Times that the complaint against Bove not only speaks to his “failure to fulfill his ethical obligations as a lawyer, but demonstrate[s] 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.”

Why would Republicans install a judge who has demonstrated a willingness to tell the courts to “fuck off” in favor of a president’s political goals, if not to help that president neuter the judiciary from within?