Trump judicial nominee Bove denies whistleblower allegations at hearing

Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by President Donald Trump to the federal bench, defended himself at a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday after whistleblower allegations that he suggested that subordinates may need to defy a court order.

Bove has been at the center of some of the Justice Department’s most controversial actions, including a push to drop federal corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. At the hearing, he sought to portray himself as a by-the-books prosecutor who respects the judiciary.

He frustrated Democratic lawmakers by refusing to answer many of their questions and was buoyed by support from Republicans who said criticism of him was unfounded.

The whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, is the former acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation. His 27-page letter, transmitted to lawmakers and obtained by The Washington Post, said Bove used an expletive when he implied to a room full of Justice Department officials in March that they may need to ignore a judge’s order blocking the president’s plan to fly undocumented migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador with little notice.

The letter outlines a number of fraught moments when Justice Department officials allegedly tried to stop Reuveni from gathering facts to present to U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in the high-profile lawsuit over deportation flights. It also suggests Reuveni has emails to back up parts of his account.

The letter says Bove told Justice Department officials that, even if there was an adverse ruling from the judge, at least one plane carrying the migrants would be taking off “no matter what.” The Trump administration did send planes to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act after Boasberg’s verbal order forbidding it, though officials say they did not defy the order because the planes were already in the air when the judge ruled.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, defended Bove on Wednesday, touting his credentials and saying that the “rhetoric aimed at Mr. Bove and members of the media has crossed the line.”

Bove, who was tapped by Trump to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, repeatedly denied that he discussed defying a court order. He said he didn’t recall if he used an expletive to criticize the judiciary.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) — who has said he opposes Bove’s nomination — voiced concern that the nominee would continue to work on behalf of the Trump administration as a judge.

“What’s your red line? I really wonder,” Booker said. “What could the president ask you to do that you wouldn’t do?”

Trump officials fired Reuveni from the Justice Department after he admitted at a court hearing that the administration mistakenly deported Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego García to the prison in El Salvador, despite a previous court order barring his removal to that country.

Bove said at the Senate hearing that it was not unusual for political appointees at the Justice Department to move forward with cases or investigatory actions amid protests and dissent from career and veteran government attorneys. As a judge, he said he would “exercise restraint and not make policy decisions.”

“There is a wildly inaccurate mischaracterization of me in the mainstream media,” Bove testified. “I am not anyone’s henchman. I am not an enforcer. I am a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this.”

Democrats said Bove’s refusal to answer questions Wednesday went far beyond the conduct of a typical judicial nominee, since Bove often punted questions that did not deal with sensitive investigatory matters. For example, he refused to say whether he spoke with top White House aide Stephen Miller before pushing to drop the Adams case. The senators asked Grassley to review Bove’s answers and the committee’s rules and consider calling Bove back to the committee.

Grassley said he would consider it.

“The fact that I can’t get anything resembling a straight answer in the circumstances we are in right now, I think, signals a really bad moment for this committee,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Bove served as one of Trump’s personal lawyers before the president was elected to a second term, representing Trump as he faced multiple state and federal criminal indictments and was convicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Before that, Bove worked as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and a private law firm in New Jersey. After Todd Blanche, now the deputy attorney general, started his own small firm so he could defend Trump in his criminal indictments, he recruited Bove to work alongside him.

When a Republican senator asked Bove on Wednesday if he had ever witnessed a Justice Department attorney make legal decisions based primarily on politics, the nominee said yes — when he was defending Trump. He echoed a line of many conservatives and Trump loyalists in the Justice Department, who say Trump’s criminal cases convinced them the Justice Department had become too political and needed to be fixed.

“I witnessed members of the special counsel office taking positions about the need to go to trial quickly before the election,” Bove said. “I found it in my experience to be completely inconsistent with normal practice.”

Bove has not previously faced a Senate confirmation vote because his Justice Department position does not require one. He filled in as acting deputy attorney general while Blanche awaited confirmation during the first six weeks of the administration.

In that role, Bove ordered the firing of at least eight senior FBI officials and a sweeping examination of the work of thousands of other bureau employees, including those who worked on investigations tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The ousted leaders oversaw intelligence, national security, cyber-investigations, and the bureau’s science and technology branch.

Bove also signed a memo that directed federal prosecutors nationwide to investigate and potentially bring criminal charges against state and local officials who don’t cooperate with Trump’s plans to carry out mass deportations.

More than a half-dozen Justice Department attorneys resigned in protest after Bove ordered the agency to dismiss charges against Adams. The resignations included the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and most of the senior leadership of the Justice Department’s public integrity division, which prosecutes corruption crimes.

Ryan Crosswell, a former public integrity division lawyer who resigned after he refused Bove’s demands to ask a judge to dismiss Adams’s indictment, said he was initially relieved when he learned that Bove would be a leader in the Justice Department. He thought Bove could be a suitable pick because he had experience working as a federal prosecutor in New York, but that impression quickly changed.

“I never questioned Mr. Bove’s credentials. I questioned his character,” Crosswell, who is running as a Democrat in Pennsylvania for Congress, said in an interview. “He and Mr. Blanche know better. They know that prosecutors in court are supposed to speak with candor. And they know that prosecutors do not drop cases against political allies and bring cases against political opponents.”