A fired Department of Justice lawyer says that a top DOJ official Emil Bove — whom President Donald Trump has nominated to become a federal appeals court judge — told department attorneys to consider telling judges “f---k you” and ignoring any court order that barred the Trump administration from deporting immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act.
Bove, during a March 14 meeting with the whistleblower, Erez Reuveni and other DOJ attorneys, “stressed to all in attendance that the planes [carrying the immigrants] needed to take off no matter what,” according to a letter Tuesday from Reuveni’s lawyers at the Government Accountability Project.
The letter was sent to the DOJ’s internal watchdog and top members of Congress a day before Bove — who previously acted as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer — is due to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing on his nomination to become a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
It comes as several federal judges have raised concerns that the DOJ has misled them, failed to comply with court orders, and deliberately delayed responding to requests for information relating to Trump administration efforts to summarily deport undocumented immigrants without due process.
