Another whistleblower claims that top DOJ official suggested department could ignore court orders

CNN

6 days ago

Another whistleblower has made claims to the Justice Department's watchdog that Emil Bove — a top agency official who is now nominated for a judgeship — suggested others in the department could ignore court orders during a contentious legal battle in an immigration case.
The whistleblower, a former DOJ attorney in the Office of Immigration Litigation, told CNN documents have been filed with the DOJ Office of the Inspector General that appear to align with another whistleblower's account that Bove tried to mislead federal judges during the administration's aggressive deportation effort this spring.
'I think it would be incredibly dangerous for someone like that to have a lifetime appointment as a federal appellate judge,' the whistleblower said.
These disclosures were filed in May before Erez Reuveni, an immigration law specialist who worked on the case of the mistakenly deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, made similar claims in a whistleblower letter in June. Once Reuveini went public, this whistleblower, who worked with Reuveni, decided to publicize on Friday that their own disclosure had been made to the DOJ inspector general ahead of Bove's Senate confirmation vote.
CNN has not independently reviewed the documents submitted by this whistleblower. News of the latest disclosure comes days before Bove, a former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, is set to receive a final Senate vote to be confirmed for a lifetime appointment to an appellate judgeship.
'I think he has demonstrated in several ways that he doesn't respect the authority of the federal courts and doesn't respect the role of the DOJ attorneys representing the United States before those courts,' this whistleblower told CNN.
In a statement to CNN about this newly discovered disclosure, a DOJ spokesperson said Bove 'will make an excellent judge.'
'Emil Bove is a highly qualified judicial nominee who has done incredible work at the Department of Justice to help protect civil rights, dismantle Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and Make America Safe Again,' spokesperson Gates McGavick told CNN. 'He will make an excellent judge — the Department's loss will be the Third Circuit's gain.'
While working as the president's personal attorney, Bove helped defend Trump in his federal criminal cases, both of which were dismissed after his reelection last fall, and in the New York hush-money case, in which Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges he faced.
Bove has repeatedly rejected the claims of the first whistleblower, who alleged in a letter that Bove said in a March meeting 'that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts 'f**k you'' if they stood in the way of Trump's deportation efforts. During a confirmation hearing, Bove said he had 'no recollection' of the claims leveraged in the letter.
'I don't think there's any validity to the suggestion that that whistleblower complaint filed … calls into question my qualifications to serve as a circuit judge,' Bove said to the committee.
He also said: 'I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order.'
Even amid the disclosures, Bove's nomination has moved through the Senate along partisan lines. Earlier this month, all 12 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to move Bove's nomination forward, as Democratic Sen. Cory Booker railed against Republican Chair Chuck Grassley and every Democratic senator walked out.
The latest whistleblower told CNN their decision to leave the Justice Department was solidified in March shortly after the Trump administration sent planes with migrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, despite court orders to stop the hasty deportations. The whistleblower alleged Bove told attorneys to mislead the court.
'It was not a place where I could continue to work,' the whistleblower told CNN.
The Senate Judiciary Committee received a letter in June asserting that this whistleblower had made a protected disclosure to the DOJ inspector general and asked the panel to contact the independent watchdog about the status of the investigation, according to a copy shared with CNN.
Although the letter shared with Grassley and ranking Democratic member Dick Durbin does not name Bove specifically, it says 'our client provided evidence that established their reasonable belief that senior Department of Justice officials may have violated laws, rules or regulations-notably with respect to a March 2025 Temporary Restraining Order ('TRO') issued by the presiding judge in a matter before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.'
The whistleblower said they are concerned that Senate Republicans aren't taking the time to dig into the claims.
'It appears Senate Republicans are not taking seriously Bove's nomination because they would rather rush to confirm him based on their loyalty to the president rather than take more time to investigate any potential allegations of wrongdoing' the whistleblower said.
A spokesperson for Grassley told CNN the senator's office has contacted legal representatives for the whistleblower about their complaint, along with the DOJ inspector general's office. A spokesperson for Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee declined to comment.
The DOJ inspector general's office did not respond to CNN's request for comment.
CNN's Shania Shelton contributed to this report.