A day ahead of a confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s choice of former defense attorney Emil Bove for a lifetime spot on a federal appeals court, a former Justice Department attorney said Bove had discussed plans to defy potential court orders that may frustrate the president’s deportation plans.
Bove, who was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, has served as a top DOJ official since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. His confirmation hearing is set for Wednesday.
The allegations, raised publicly by former DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, will add to what was already expected to be a contentious hearing as Democrats have highlighted concerns about Bove’s role in remaking the Justice Department in Trump’s image.
In a 27-page letter sent Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee from attorneys at the Government Accountability Project representing him, Reuveni said Bove was part of a wide-ranging plan to potentially defy court orders in deportations.
That included a March meeting over planned deportations under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, when Bove “stressed to all in attendance that the plans needed to take off no matter what” and that the DOJ “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’” if ordered to stop deportations.
Democrats on the panel criticized Bove’s nomination following the publication of the letter. Ranking member Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said in a news release that Bove has “abused” his position at the department.
“These serious allegations, from a career Justice Department lawyer who defended the first Trump Administration’s immigration policies, not only speak to Mr. Bove’s failure to fulfill his ethical obligations as a lawyer, but demonstrate 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,” Durbin said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement that “the political timing of this public attack could not be more obvious.”
“Initial, unconfirmed whistleblower disclosures are meant to be confidential, not leaked to the media,” Grassley said. “The Deputy Attorney General has made clear these allegations are false and Mr. Reuveni himself has attested to the Trump administration’s lawful actions in a signed court brief.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., another member of the panel, said a president “gets a lot of deference here for who he wants” in circuit court posts, and that the whistleblower report would likely come up at the hearing.
“I’m sure he’ll get a chance to address them fully tomorrow, so we’ll see,” Hawley said.
Whistleblower account
Reuveni’s account references multiple emails and other documents that occurred at the time of his concerns or corroborated issues with the DOJ’s filings in court. In the letter, Reuveni said that he was fired in April after refusing to file a brief “misrepresenting” the facts in the high-profile mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
Bove, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, served as a member of Trump’s criminal defense team in the federal criminal cases against him as well as the New York state criminal case. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in the New York state case for falsifying business records in relation to his 2016 presidential campaign.
The federal cases against Trump were dismissed after his victory last year due to a DOJ policy that prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president.
After Trump’s victory in November, he tapped Bove to serve as the principal associate deputy attorney general, and since then he’s been a central figure in Trump’s efforts to reshape the department.
That includes the decision to drop the high-profile corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, where Bove personally represented the government’s efforts to drop the case. Multiple attorneys resigned rather than moving to dismiss the case.
When the judge in the case ultimately ruled that it should be dropped, he wrote that it “smacks of a bargain” between the administration and Adams to drop the case in exchange for Adams’ help on the administration’s preferred immigration policies.
Since Trump tapped Bove for the post, Democrats have criticized his tenure at the DOJ and called for more information about his actions at the department.
That also includes a letter last week from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asking for more information about the DOJ’s effort to freeze “lawfully appropriated” greenhouse gas reduction grants as well as Bove’s involvement in the Adams case.
Former Justice Department attorneys have also come out against Bove’s nomination, publishing a video on social media. Michael Romano, a former Justice Department attorney who worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, criticized Bove for firing attorneys who worked on those cases.
“This was a crime of historic proportions. To turn around and fire people who worked on those cases because the president asked him to was a naked political move,” Romano said in the video.
Other groups, including the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, have also come out against Bove’s nomination. The group’s executive director Gregg Nunziata sent a letter to the Senate panel Monday, laying out the “grave reasons” that Bove should not receive a lifetime appointment to the federal bench, particularly his involvement in the Adams case.
The letter said that Bove’s tenure at DOJ, “including manipulating prosecutions for political or policy ends, is deeply incompatible with a lifetime appointment to federal judicial service.”
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