The DOJ's Fake "Whistleblower"

Erez Reuvini's account of what allegedly happened at the DOJ in major immigration cases reveals not a whistleblower but another activist with an ax to grind against the administration.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to approve on Thursday the nomination of Emil Bove, a top Department of Justice official, to a judgeship on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Bove’s nomination then will head to the full Senate for confirmation.

While the president’s nomination of Bove, his one-time criminal defense attorney and current principal associate deputy attorney general, at first appeared to be a sure thing, Democrats had other plans. Senator Adam Schiff, as he is prone to do, launched the bad faith operation against Bove last month by rehashing Bove’s move to drop the politically motivated case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in February. Schiff further claimed the president would "catapult Emil Bove to the Supreme Court” in the near future. (If only!)

But Schiff’s warnings fell on deaf ears—so Democrats dusted off a tried-and-true strategy of finding a “whistleblower” to do their dirty work. The day before Bove’s confirmation hearing, Erez Reuvini, a Department of Justice employee fired for insubordination over his handling of key immigration lawsuits, came forward as a “whistleblower” to sabotage Bove’s nomination.

In a 27-page letter, Reuvini detailed his alleged interactions with DOJ officials including Bove related to high-profile deportation lawsuits including the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the “Maryland father” erroneously deported to his home country of El Salvador. Reuvini, a career prosecutor who recently had been promoted to a top post within the DOJ’s immigration unit, spun a tale of how Trump loyalists at the department attempted to thwart judicial orders that ran afoul of the president’s agenda.

And of course no anti-Trump snitch worth his prospective book advance is successful without showing a little clickbaity leg—so Reuvini claimed Bove profanely described how the DOJ would react to an unfavorable ruling on the president’s Alien Enemies Act policy. (All my reporting on the topic can be found here.)

Trump signed the proclamation, which ordered the immediate deportation of illegal Venezuelans tied to Tren de Aragua, on March 14; that same day, top DOJ officials including Bove and Reuvini met to discuss how to handle expected lawsuits in the matter.

“Bove then made a remark concerning the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated. Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order. Mr. Reuveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned, and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in the room. Silence overtook the room. Mr. Reuven and others were quickly ushered out of the room. Notwithstanding Bove’s directive, Mr. Reuven left the meeting understanding that DOJ would tell DHS to follow all court orders.”

Who’s Effing Who?

Now, there is nothing wrong with Bove’s comment even if he did say it—he said during his June confirmation hearing he did not recall making the remark. Given the open hostility judges, particularly those in Washington, have demonstrated against the president and his supporters over the past several years, why would anyone in the Trump administration take any other posture?

Despite what judges including Chief Justice John Roberts want the public to believe, the judiciary is not superior to the other branches of government. And with so many judges essentially saying “fuck you” to the president in the form of hundreds of rulings across the country, turnabout is fair play.

And it also appears Reuvini did some “fuck you-ing” himself. Not to the courts but to his own superiors. His “whistleblower” account of various interactions and proceedings over a three-week period reveals not a dutiful prosecutor following the best judgement of his bosses—and de facto his biggest boss, the president—but a rogue activist frenetically usurping his higher-ups including refusing to sign a brief in the Garcia case.

Reuvini’s brazen insubordination resulted in his dismissal on April 11; Attorney General Pam Bondi told the New York Times that “any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

Reuvini Hearts Abrego Garcia

In response to Reuvini’s allegations, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley issued a point-by-point refutation earlier this week. (Document can be found here.) Senate Democrats, however, are not deterred. Grassley denied their request to hold a hearing on Reuvini’s accusations but Thursday’s meeting should nonetheless produce plenty of fireworks.

Reuvini, for his part, recently hit the media trail to tell his tale of woe and preen about his alleged principles. Ruth Marcus, who in 2018 also worked with Democrats and activists to torpedo the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, went to Reuvini’s home in suburban Washington for an interview. “We talked in his kitchen for more than two hours, as his cat intermittently jumped on the table seeking attention and as his dog rang a bell asking to be let out,” Marcus wrote for New Yorker magazine last week. “Reuveni, who is forty-four, was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, his dark hair graying at the temples.”

But rather than dispel suspicions he acted politically, Reuvini confirmed it. “They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution—candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so. That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about.”

Except for the fact Reuvini over the past 15 years worked for a Department of Justice that lied to a FISA court four times to spy on Trump’s campaign; spent hundreds of millions of dollars investigating the president, his White House aides, his advisors, and his supporters based on a tissue of lies about the events of January 6; authorized an armed raid of the president’s residence based on lies about government papers; and brought two unprecedented criminal federal indictments against the president filled with lies—just to name a few examples.

But trying to deport an illegal gang banger, wife beater, and known drug/human trafficker was simply a bridge too far for Reuvini.

In fact, Kilmar Garcia apparently occupies a lot of Reuvini’s thoughts. “If they can do this sort of thing to Abrego Garcia, to 238 people that nobody knows, and send them to CECOT forever with no due process, they can do that to anyone,” Reuvini told New York Times reporter Devlin Barret last week. “It should be deeply, deeply worrisome to anyone who cares about their safety and their liberty, that the government can, without showing evidence to anyone of anything, spirit you away on a plane to wherever, forever.”

That passage alone should disqualify Reuvini from whistleblower status. The “We Are All Abrego Garcia” does not represent rational thinking or reflect U.S. law. It is a political tag line intended to unnecessarily scare Americans and even legal immigrants that they can be rounded up and sent to a Central American dungeon.

But it will help Reuvini get a big book advance and appearances on MSNBC.