Top Justice Department official Emil Bove, who has been nominated for the federal appeals bench, testified before the Senate Wednesday that he never told department attorneys to ignore court orders, denying the account of a whistleblower.
Bove, a former criminal defense attorney who represented President Trump, rejected suggestions by Democrats that the claims of whistleblower, former Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni, render him unfit to serve on the appeals court. His nomination has come under scrutiny after Reuveni said in a complaint made public Tuesday that in one meeting, Bove had used an expletive when saying the Trump administration might need to ignore judicial commands.
“I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove told the Senate Judiciary Committee. He added, “I don’t think there’s any validity to the suggestion that that whistleblower complaint filed yesterday calls into question my qualifications to serve as a circuit judge.”
Bove was nominated last month by Mr. Trump to 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 Mr. Trump’s defense team for his New York hush money trial and defended him in the two federal criminal cases brought by the Justice Department.
The White House said Bove “is unquestionably qualified for the role and has a career filled with accolades, both academically and throughout his legal career, that should make him a shoo-in for the Third Circuit.”
“The President is committed to nominating constitutionalists to the bench who will restore law and order and end the weaponization of the justice system, and Emil Bove fits that mold perfectly,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email.
Reuveni, a 14-year veteran of the Justice Department, 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. He 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.
Reuveni described a Justice Department meeting in March about Mr. Trump’s plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, citing a claim of a U.S. 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. He claims Bove used a profanity in saying the department would need to consider telling the courts what to do and “ignore any such order,” his lawyers said in the letter.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called the allegations “utterly false.” He said 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 a central figure in other controversial moves by 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 Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda.