US Senate Democrats have released leaked messages and emails that they claim appear to support the Trump administration’s defiance of court orders. The ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dick Durbin, released Thursday what he described as whistleblower evidence about government lawyer Emil Bove. According to Durbin, in his role as acting deputy attorney general for the Justice Department, Bove ordered his teammates to mislead or ignore courts about President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts.
On social media, Durbin wrote that email exchanges, test messages, and documents show that the DOJ disregarded a court order and misled a federal court. Bove led this effort, which forced attorneys to breach their ethical duty of honesty to the court. Bove was recently nominated for a lifetime appointment as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. However, he needs a Senate confirmation vote for the position.
“Emil Bove does not belong anywhere near the federal bench,” Durbin stated. “This vote will serve as a crucial test for Senate Judiciary Republicans.” Durbin indicated that the emails and texts he disclosed originate from a source within the Justice Department; most of the names in the correspondences have been redacted.
However, they seem to corroborate allegations presented in a complaint filed in June by Erez Reuveni, a Justice Department attorney who previously worked under Bove until his dismissal in April. In his complaint, Reuveni claimed that Bove advised Justice Department lawyers that they “would need to consider telling the courts ‘f*** you’ if they interfered with President Trump’s deportation initiatives.
Trump Called Undocumented Immigration an Invasion
Trump labeled undocumented immigration an “invasion” and sought to deport individuals under the law’s authority, denying them the opportunity to appeal their removal.
According to Reuveni, Bove informed the Justice Department that Trump intended to commence deportation flights immediately upon invoking the Alien Enemies Act. He reportedly emphasized to all present that the aircraft must take off regardless of circumstances. Reuveni interpreted this interaction as an attempt to bypass judicial authority.
In a separate incident, Reuveni indicated that he was discouraged from inquiring further regarding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant unlawfully deported to El Salvador despite having a court-issued protection order.
When Reuveni testified before a Maryland court that he lacked “satisfactory” explanations concerning Abrego Garcia’s repatriation, he asserted that officials associated with Trump pressured him to make claims against Abrego Garcia that “were not supported by law or the record.” Subsequently, Reuveni was dismissed from his position.
The Judge Ordered the Trump Administration Not to Remove Anyone from the Class
In a series of emails dated March 15, Reuveni responded to a notification that planes carrying deportees under the Alien Enemies Act were still airborne. “The judge specifically ordered us not to remove anyone in the class, and to return anyone in the air,” he wrote back.
The emails reflected an injunction from District Judge James Boasberg barring deportations and ordering the planes to turn around. The planes landed in El Salvador and delivered their human cargo to a maximum security prison, where many remain to this day.
In another instance, a member of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) replied to an email thread by saying: “My take on these emails is that DOJ leadership and DOJ litigators don’t agree on the strategy. Please keep DHS out of it.”
Text messages also show Reuveni and an unnamed colleague discussing Bove’s request to tell the courts “f*** you”. “Guess we are going to say f*** you to the court,” one text message reads. In another, the colleague appears to react to Trump officials lying before the court. “Oh sh**,” they write. “That was just not true.”
