Latest news with #whistleblower
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Whistleblower evidence suggests Trump judicial nominee Emil Bove misled Senate
A new whistleblower has come forward to challenge the federal judicial nomination of Emil Bove, sharing evidence with lawmakers suggesting the controversial former attorney for Donald Trump and current top Justice Department official misled lawmakers during his confirmation hearing last month. The whistleblower — whose existence has not been previously reported — presented documentation that contradicts claims Bove made before the Senate Judiciary Committee about a Justice Department prosecution. The Washington Post reviewed the evidence and agreed to withhold details to protect the identity of the whistleblower, whose lawyers spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the whistleblower's fear of retribution.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
GOP Rep shares update on Christian university accused of skirting Trump orders on reverse discrimination
Rep Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., has been probing Belmont University based in Nashville, after obtaining whistleblower complaints the school was maintaining its DEI programs in violation of President Trump's executive orders demanding they be eliminated.
CNN
3 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Another whistleblower claims that top DOJ official suggested department could ignore court orders
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.
The Independent
4 days ago
- The Independent
Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town
A temple town, a mystery whistleblower and a chilling confession: allegations of rape, murder and the secret burial of hundreds of women and girls over two decades have shocked the quiet holy town of Dharmasthala in southern India 's Karnataka. His face hidden behind a black hood, a whistleblower appeared before a local court earlier this month carrying skeletal remains that he claimed were taken from a mass burial site of sexual assault victims. The man claimed to be a former sanitation worker at the Dharmasthala temple and alleged he was forced into secretly disposing of hundreds of bodies, many of which showed signs of brutal violence and sexual assault. In a written complaint to the police chief of Dakshina Kannada district, the man, whose identity is being withheld for his safety, said he worked under duress for nearly 20 years before fleeing into hiding with his family in 2014. Driven by guilt, remorse and haunting nightmares, he had returned after more than a decade to expose the 'horrific crimes' he allegedly witnessed during his time working at the temple. According to his testimony and redacted complaint seen by The Independent, the alleged rape, torture and murder of girls and women and the disposal of their remains occurred between 1995 and 2014. The whistleblower demanded exhumation of the hundreds of corpses he claimed to have buried and an investigation so that justice could be ensured for the victims 'who were denied dignity even in death'. His lawyer, KV Dhananjay, told The Independent this was an 'unprecedented' case where the witness had come forward not only with his testimony but also evidence, demanding accountability. 'Here is the individual who says that it is not the fear of law but the fear of conscience and fear for morality that has brought him back,' Dhananjay said. 'In the last 100 years of court judgments, you don't find a parallel.' The emergence of a whistleblower has put the spotlight on hundreds of cases of women and girls who were found dead or reported missing in and around Dharmasthala over the years, many of which were ignored or not formally investigated by police. Nearly two weeks after the man filed his complaint, Karnataka's state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the allegations. Nestled in the lush Western Ghats on the banks of the Nethravathi river, Dharmasthala is a major Hindu pilgrimage site. The medieval Shri Manjunatha Temple, dedicated to the deity Shiva and managed by a family, attracts millions of devotees to the small town every year. The whistleblower said he was from the Dalit community, the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system, and worked at the Shri Manjunatha Temple from 1995 to 2014. 'What began as regular employment later turned into work of covering up evidence of extremely horrific crimes,' he alleged. He fled in 2014 when 'the mental torture I was experiencing became unbearable'. The tipping point came after a young girl was sexually harassed, he alleged, prompting him to run away. He and his family went into hiding in a neighbouring state, he claimed, constantly changing residences for fear of their lives. In a chilling first-person account, the man said he found corpses wash up on the riverbank and assumed they were suicides or accidental drownings. But he soon noticed that most of them were women, and many were naked or semi-naked and showed signs of violence. It was in 1998 when he was first asked to "secretly dispose of the bodies", he alleged. When he refused, he was allegedly beaten and threatened. 'We will cut you into pieces. Your body will also be buried like the other corpses. We will sacrifice all your family members,' he alleged he was told. He claimed that many of the victims he ended up burying in secret were minor girls and women subjected to brutal sexual violence. They bore torn clothes, acid burns, and other injuries. In a particularly distressing case in 2010, the man said he was ordered to bury a girl he estimated was 12 to 15 years old. 'She was still wearing her school uniform shirt but other garments were missing. She had a school bag. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,' the whistleblower said in his testimony. 'They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.' He also claimed that destitute men were murdered at Dharmasthala and similarly buried. The man alleges that he was a witness to these murders. According to the lawyer, the corpses were not buried in designated cemeteries but on open lands. 'These were not organised interments sanctioned by any authority but random burials, hidden and illegal,' he said. The whistleblower said he kept silent for years out of fear but the 'insurmountable sense of guilt' and recurring nightmares became too much to bear. 'I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses that I received and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them,' he said. Dhananjay said the whistleblower's claims described a place where 'ordinary laws just don't work at all'. 'Now if it is true, one must assume that if somebody goes missing in such a place, the police are simply not going to record it,' he said. 'But just because we are unable to explain the past, the rocks should not blind us to the present.' The lawyer said the whistleblower took matters into his own hands because he expected little from police. 'Before coming to us, he went to one such burial site, exhumed the remains, and handed them over to the court,' he said. 'So now, the court has half the picture. The other half is for police to take him to the site where the recovery was made. They have not done that either. This man was not wanted. There were no pending investigations against him. No one was even looking for these bodies. By not acting, police are sending a message to the world – that this man may be telling the truth.' In a statement issued on Sunday 20 July, the temple authorities said they support a 'fair and transparent' investigation. 'Truth and belief form the foundation of a society's ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light,' said K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala. The whistleblower hasn't named any of the people he claims are responsible. He has sought protection from the court first, saying he will disclose more details once he and his family receive proper protection. Should anything happen to him before he is able to reveal the names, he has said, Dhananjay will open a sealed version of his full testimony. 'The truth about these tragedies must not die with me,' he said in his testimony. Karnataka State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary told The Independent that the appointment of a Special Investigation Team was a 'significant step'. She referenced the anguish of families still waiting for answers. 'An old woman is still hoping to recover the remains of her daughter just so she can perform her last rites,' she said. 'That's why I wrote to the Karnataka government, and within four or five days they constituted the SIT.' If you are a child and you need help because something has happened to you, you can call Childline free of charge on 0800 1111. You can also call the NSPCC if you are an adult and you are worried about a child, on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adults on 0808 801 0331.
Malay Mail
6 days ago
- Politics
- Malay Mail
New reforms won't fix weak whistleblower protection law without ombudsman, civil society warns
KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — The Malaysian government must introduce an ombudsman without delay to protect whistleblowers who raise the alarm on corruption, crimes or misconduct, experts and civil society groups have said. In a statement dated yesterday, these subject matter experts and civil society groups welcomed the government's recent tabling of amendments to the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) 2010 in the Dewan Rakyat, but said it should be improved. 'While the move is timely and necessary, the proposed reforms remain incomplete and require urgent refinement to ensure meaningful protection and long-term institutional integrity,' they said in a statement. The statement was signed by 13 partners to the All-Party Parliamentary Group Malaysia (APPGM) on Integrity, Governance and Anti-Corruption, which is a bipartisan 14-member group of federal lawmakers chaired by a Pakatan Harapan MP and with a Perikatan Nasional MP as its vice chairman. The 13 partners zeroed in on the proposed amendment to the WPA to create a 'Whistleblower Protection Committee', stressing that this should only be a temporary fix and must be replaced by an ombudsman. This is what the government plans to do by adding Section 5A to the WPA: 'Whistleblower Protection Committee' to oversee the Act's implementation and to get statistics on disclosure and complaints received. The committee's composition: Law minister to appoint chairman and maximum seven members; Committee chairman's term and members' term are a maximum three years, but they can be reappointed when their term expires. Civil society urges for ombudsman instead of temporary Whistleblower Protection Committee On July 22, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Law and Institutional Reform) M. Kulasegaran in the Dewan Rakyat said the Whistleblower Protection Committee is just a 'stopgap measure' until the Malaysian government introduces a new agency called the Ombudsman Malaysia. Kulasegaran said the Whistleblower Protection Committee is not meant to be permanent, and that a new law is expected to be created at the end of this year to introduce the ombudsman. He had also said that the ombudsman is expected to take over the committee's duties, and also have the added power to receive tip-offs from whistleblowers and also monitor the outcome of investigations by enforcement agencies. But in their statement yesterday, the 13 partners to the APPGM group said 'the proposed interim committee must not become a permanent workaround', and said an ombudsman must be introduced to replace it. Before the ombudsman is created, they said the interim whistleblower protection committee's members must not only be government insiders, but must include 'independent civil society actors, legal and governance experts' appointed through a transparent and criteria-based process. 'We reiterate our long-standing position: without an independent Ombudsman, the WPA remains structurally weak. 'The absence of this key institution continues to leave whistleblower protection vulnerable to selective enforcement and political interference. The establishment of the Ombudsman must proceed without further delay,' they said. Other amendments good In the same statement, the 13 partners to the APPGM group supported two other major amendments in the WPA (to amend Section 6, to add Section 11(1A)): 1. (Section 6 amendment) The existing WPA does not protect whistleblowers, if there are any written law that prohibits them from disclosing information related to the improper conduct (for example, the Official Secrets Act). The proposed amendment would allow whistleblowers to still be protected in Malaysia even if the information disclosure is prohibited by any law. What the 13 experts and civil society representatives say: They support the Section 6 amendment to ensure that WPA protections would override conflicting laws (including the Official Secrets Act and the Penal Code's Section 203A), as whistleblowers will remain at legal risk and the WPA's purpose would be defeated without this amendment. 2. (Section 11(1A) amendment) This proposed amendment seeks to empower the relevant enforcement agency to use its own discretion to decide that it will continue to protect the whistleblower, if the enforcement agency discovers during investigation that such protection needs to be given. What the 13 experts and civil society representatives say: This amendment is a welcome addition. The amendment gives enforcement agencies the discretionary powers to maintain protection for whistleblowers on a case by case basis. As a whole, the 13 individuals said the WPA amendments are the result of years of multi-stakeholder engagement, and cautioned against any regression to closed-door policymaking. 'The reform process must remain open, inclusive, and guided by evidence and international best practice,' they said, while also offering their support to help the government deliver a permanent and credible framework for whistleblower protection. The statement's 13 signatories are Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar; Tan Sri Nazir Razak; Datuk Hussamuddin Yaacub (#RasuahBusters); Professor Edmund Terence Gomez; Shah Hakim Zain; Maha Balakrishnan; Anas Zubedy; Nurhayati Nordin (#RasuahBusters secretariat); Cynthia Gabriel (C4); Pushpan Murugiah (C4); Badlishah Sham Baharin (Ikram); Aira Azhari (IDEAS); and Tharma Pillai (Undi 18). The WPA amendments were tabled at the Dewan Rakyat on March 6 and was passed on July 22, and will next be tabled at Dewan Negara. The WPA amendments will only become law if the Dewan Negara also passes those amendments, and after the amendments receive royal assent, are gazetted and take legal effect.
