DOJ official suggested ignoring court orders

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   IslandBitesposted 4 weeks ago

   Whistleblower says top DOJ official suggested ignoring court orders on deportations
   
   The whistleblower alleged that Emil Bove, formerly Trump's personal lawyer, stressed that deportation flights carried out under the Alien Enemies Act had to take off no matter what
   
   A top official at the Justice Department told subordinates they would need to consider ignoring court orders the day before the administration carried out deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, according to a department whistleblower.
   
   In a letter sent to Congress by his attorneys, Erez Reuveni said he and others were told by Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in very blunt terms that they might have to defy court orders.
   
   Bove told attendees of the March 14 meeting that President Donald Trump would soon be invoking the Alien Enemies Act and that deportations would be carried out that weekend.
   
   "Bove indicated these removals were a priority for the administration and stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what," according to the letter from Reuveni's attorneys at the Government Accountability Project. A copy of the letter, which was first reported on by The New York Times, was obtained by NBC News.
   
   "Bove then made a remark concerning the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated. Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts 'f--- you' and ignore any such court order," according to the letter.
   
   Reuveni said he was "stunned" by the remarks, but left the meeting reassured after another attendee said the DOJ would tell the administration to comply with court orders.
   
   Now that disbelief "is a relic of a different time," the letter says, and Reuveni was involved in three separate cases where the DOJ ignored court orders and made misrepresentations in court before he was fired in April.
   
   Reuveni was fired in early April, after he acknowledged in court that one deportee, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, had been sent to a prison in El Salvador despite a court order barring him from being sent there.
   
   "[D]espite the high-profile nature of the case, Mr. Reuveni initially believed the case could be resolved through a straightforward return of Mr. Abrego Garcia to the United States," the letter says.
   
   Attorneys for "both DHS and DOS informed Mr. Reuveni that they would only consider any action to attempt to remedy the illegal removal of Mr. Abrego Garcia if DOJ leadership approved it. DOJ leadership never did," it says.
   
   Reuveni said he was then pressed to say in court filings that Abrego was a "terrorist" and he refused to do so, because he wasn't aware of any evidence to substantiate that claim. He said he told his boss, "I didn't sign up to lie."
   
   He was placed on administrative leave seven hours later for "failure to follow a directive" and then fired on April 11.
   
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