CNN
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The big question hanging over top Justice Department official Emil Bove’s nomination to a prestigious appeals court judgeship is whether he actually suggested the Trump DOJ might simply ignore court orders.
That’s what a whistleblower who served with Bove says, and that whistleblower has now backed up his account with evidence.
If Bove actually said such a thing – he allegedly said the administration needed to consider telling the courts “f**k you” and ignoring orders – it would obviously be very problematic. This is a man, after all, who could soon be charged with upholding the rule of law from the other side.
But regardless of what precisely transpired in the March meeting that the whistleblower cites, there is no question this highlights the Trump administration’s disdain for the courts.
And it just keeps getting worse, as new disclosures role in.
The situation deals with the Trump administration’s efforts to rapidly deport migrants to a brutal prison in El Salvador without due process. These are the deportations that involved the Alien Enemies Act and included Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Courts have repeatedly rebuked the administration’s actions, and Abrego Garcia’s case stands as a huge test of President Donald Trump’s power grabs.
For one, the whistleblower’s messages, emails and documents – which were obtained by the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee – bolster the idea that the administration proactively chose to disregard the initial verbal order from a judge not to deport the migrants under the Alien Enemies Act.
The emails show the whistleblower, then-DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, had told multiple people to halt the deportations.
“No one subject to AEA in our custody can be removed,” Reuveni said, adding that anyone “in the air” who didn’t have a final deportation order “should be returned.”
That’s not what happened, though. The emails show a top DOJ official saying that Bove had determined that, because the planes had left US airspace before the judge ultimately issued a written order, it “was permissible under the law and the court’s order” to continue the deportations.
The administration has made similar comments publicly to justify the deportation of the migrants. But the emails suggest that, at least to some, it seemed initially clear that they were supposed to stop such deportations – until Bove stepped in.
The new documents and other court filings this week also build on evidence that the administration has frequently misled the public about the Abrego Garcia case.
Repeatedly now, the administration has said things publicly that were later undermined or contradicted in court.
One of those is the claim that Abrego Garcia wasn’t actually deported in error.
White House adviser Stephen Miller said back in April that Reuveni was initially suspended (he was later fired) for saying Garcia’s deportation was the result of an “administrative error.” (The administration was allowed to deport him, but not legally to the country he was sent to – El Salvador.)
“No one was mistakenly sent anywhere,” Miller said. “The only mistake that was made is a lawyer put an incorrect line in a legal filing that’s since been relieved of duty.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added on Fox News at the time, “We did not make a mistake.”
But in a filing this week, the Justice Department repeatedly calls the deportation a “mistake,” along with an “administrative error” and an “admitted error.”
Another key issue is whether the administration had the ability to get Abrego Garcia returned to the US.
After the courts ordered the administration to facilitate his return, the administration resisted that – in part because it indicated it didn’t have the power.
“That’s up to El Salvador, if they want to return him,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the White House in April. “That’s not up to us.”
“The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court, “nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding.”
Not only did the administration ultimately get Abrego Garcia returned – it is now charging him with alleged crimes – but just this week the government of El Salvador sharply undercut the administration’s earlier claims. It said the migrants it accepted and held in prison remained under US control.
“In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities,” Salvadoran officials told the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
And lastly is the administration’s shifting rhetoric on re-deporting Abrego Garcia before his criminal trial. It has now repeatedly said one thing publicly and another in court.
When Abrego Garcia returned last month, Bondi signaled he would be deported only after justice was served.
“Upon completion of his sentence,” Bondi said, “we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador.”
Then, after a Justice Department lawyer appeared to contradict that on a late June conference call, saying Abrego Garcia could be sent to a “third country,” the White House called reports about the development “fake news” and doubled down.
“He will face the full force of the American justice system – including serving time in American prison for the crimes he’s committed,” a White House spokeswoman said.
But on Monday, a Justice Department lawyer again contradicted the administration’s public statements, saying the deportation proceedings wouldn’t wait for the criminal case to be completed if he’s released from criminal custody.
“It’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall trying to figure out what’s going to happen next week,” Judge Paula Xinis said at one point on Monday.
Exactly why the administration can’t or won’t get its story straight isn’t clear. But Abrego Garcia’s lawyers seemed to believe the administration planned to deport him all along and was deliberately misleading about that, in hopes that he would be released. (His lawyers have actually argued against his release, for that reason.)
And it’s far from ridiculous to think that was the play here, given all the other mixed messages described above.
Reuveni in an interview with The New York Times published Thursday said the administration is “thumbing its nose at the courts.”
That’s certainly true. Either the administration is flying by the seat of its pants, or it’s deliberately misleading about a whole lot of things. Neither demonstrates much regard for the rule of law.
Whether Bove actually said “f**k you” is kind of beside the point; that’s been the subtext of the administration’s entire approach.
