A whistleblower complaint filed by a former Justice Department employee accused a senior official, Emil Bove III, of telling colleagues he was open to ignoring court orders to fulfill the administration’s hard-line immigration agenda.
Filed on Tuesday by fired department lawyer Erez Reuveni, the 27-page complaint details his final three weeks working for the administration on its plan to deport migrants to countries they did not immigrate from. That program had been paused until a Monday decision by the Supreme Court, which ruled without explanation that the program could continue while a case makes its way through the court system.
Reuveni alleges he was pressured “to misrepresent facts and present legal arguments without a basis in the law before the courts,” according to a release from the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organization representing Reuveni.
The account was filed Tuesday to both the Justice Department’s inspector general and lawmakers in Congress, according to The New York Times, which first reported the news.
Reuveni, a 15-year veteran of the DOJ, says he was promoted to acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation earlier this year, shortly after Bove was tapped last November by then-President-elect Donald Trump to serve as principal associate deputy attorney general. Bove has since been nominated by the president to serve on a federal appeals court.
In a March meeting about pending deportation flights, Bove was allegedly presented with the possibility that a court might enjoin the department from removing certain deportees from the country, pending further hearings. In response, “Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order,” Reuveni’s complaint said.
“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, especially with a ‘fuck you,’” the document reads. “On the contrary, the Department of Justice consistently advises its clients of their obligation to follow court orders, not to ignore them. Mr. Reuveni knew that it was absurd and unlawful to do otherwise.”
Reuveni was placed on administrative leave and fired several weeks later after he expressed concern over the mistaken deportation of a migrant to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT mega-prison, according to his complaint. Federal courts have found the Trump administration has admitted to wrongly deporting at least four migrants since January.
Reuveni claims that his firing was unrelated to his work performance, citing a history of “stellar” reviews.
“Indeed, Mr. Reuveni has received an ‘excellent rating’ for every year he has worked at the Department, since 2010,” the complaint reads. “On top of that, he is a recipient of nine Civil Division awards, including three during the prior Trump Administration.”
In a statement to The New York Times, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, called Reuveni’s description of events “falsehoods purportedly made by a disgruntled former employee and then leaked to the press in violation of ethical obligations.” He called the article by The Times “a false hit piece a day before a confirmation hearing.”
Bove is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, part of his nomination process after Trump tapped him in May to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
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Amelia Benavides-Colón is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.