Trump judicial nominee Bove faces questions as whistleblower claims he
floated ignoring court orders
[June 25, 2025]
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Justice Department official under scrutiny over
a whistleblower's claims that he suggested ignoring court orders will
face questions on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as he seeks to be confirmed
as a federal appeals court judge.
Emil Bove, a former criminal defense attorney for President Donald
Trump, has been behind some of the most contentious actions that Justice
Department leadership has taken since January. The Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing comes a day after a former Justice Department lawyer
alleged in a whistleblower complaint that he was fired after resisting
efforts to defy judicial orders.
Bove was nominated last month by the Republican president to serve on
the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Delaware,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A former federal prosecutor in the Southern
District of New York, Bove was on the defense team during Trump’s New
York hush money trial and defended Trump in the two federal criminal
cases brought by the Justice Department.
Bove is likely to face heated questions over the allegations made by the
whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, who was fired in April after conceding in
court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had been living in
Maryland, was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison. Reuveni sent
a letter on Tuesday to members of Congress and the Justice Department's
inspector general seeking an investigation into allegations of
wrongdoing by Bove and other officials in the weeks leading up to his
firing.
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Reuveni described a Justice Department meeting in March concerning
Trump’s plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act over what the
president claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de
Aragua. Reuveni says Bove raised the possibility that a court might
block the deportations before they could happen. Reuveni claims Bove
used a profanity in saying the department would need to consider
telling the courts what to do and “ignore any such order,” Reuveni's
lawyers said in the letter.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called the allegations “utterly
false,” saying that he was at the March meeting and “at no time did
anyone suggest a court order should not be followed.”
“Planting a false hit piece the day before a confirmation hearing is
something we have come to expect from the media, but it does not
mean it should be tolerated,” Blanche wrote in a post on X on
Tuesday.
Bove has been at the center of other moves that have roiled the
Justice Department in recent months, including the order to dismiss
New York City Mayor Eric Adams' federal corruption case. Bove's
order prompted the resignation of several Justice Department
officials, including Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, who accused
the department of acceding to a quid pro quo — dropping the case to
ensure Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda.
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