A senior Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, told subordinates he was willing to ignore court orders in order to fulfill the president’s aggressive deportation campaign, according to a whistle-blower complaint by a department lawyer who has since been fired.
The account by the dismissed lawyer, Erez Reuveni, paints a disturbing portrait of his final three weeks on the front lines of the Trump administration’s legal efforts to ship immigrants overseas, often with little notice or recourse. In Mr. Reuveni’s telling, Mr. Bove used an expletive as he discussed disregarding court orders, and other top law enforcement officials showed themselves ready to stonewall judges or lie to them to get their way.
Mr. Reuveni’s account, which was reviewed by The New York Times, was filed to lawmakers and the Justice Department inspector general on Tuesday, just one day before Mr. Bove is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a nomination to a federal appeals court. Mr. Reuveni was a career lawyer at the Justice Department for nearly 15 years until April, when he appeared in a federal court in Maryland and expressed concern that the administration had mistakenly deported a migrant to a megaprison in El Salvador. Mr. Reuveni was put on administrative leave a day later and ultimately fired.
President Trump and his aides have labeled Mr. Reuveni a disgruntled and disobedient former employee, and are likely to amplify those criticisms in response to his decision to become a whistle-blower. The filing, however, suggests a copious trail of emails, texts and phone records would support his version of events, and notes that he had diligently defended controversial policies of the first Trump administration.
Until now, Mr. Reuveni had stayed silent about the circumstances of his departure. A 27-page account, filed by his lawyers at the Government Accountability Project, Dana L. Gold and Andrea Meza, offers a host of new details and allegations about the inner workings of the Justice Department under Mr. Trump.