From all accounts, Bari Weiss — the newly installed head of CBS News — won’t rest until she turns the storied news organization into a sycophantic Trump administration mouthpiece. But, while that day is coming, it is not today. Or, perhaps more accurately, it wasn’t yesterday.
Yesterday, the venerable news program 60 Minutes featured the first interview with DOJ whistleblower Erez Reuveni. The former career attorney at the Department of Justice spoke out about the behavior of then-senior DOJ official Emil Bove. Bove was adamant the administration’s plan to disappear people — include Kilmar Abrego Garcia — to an El Salvadorian prison must continue, regardless of what any court might say about the matter. And he was quite explicit about that, according to Reuveni:
Bove emphasized, those planes need to take off, no matter what. And then after a pause, he also told all in attendance, and if some court should issue an order preventing that, we may have to consider telling that court, ‘f*** you.’
And that didn’t sit well with Reuveni, saying, “I felt like a bomb had gone off. Here is the number three official using expletives to tell career attorneys that we may just have to consider disregarding federal court orders.”
The report also details how others in the DOJ were much more comfortable adhering to Bove’s advice:
The next day, Saturday, lawyers for the prisoners sued. Judge James Boasberg called a hearing and asked government lawyer, Drew Ensign, whether the planes were leaving that weekend.
Erez Reuveni: And Ensign says to Boasberg, I don’t know. Now Ensign was at the same meeting that I was at the day before, where we were told in no uncertain terms that planes were taking off over the weekend, that those planes needed to take off no matter what. And he says, I don’t know.
Reuveni says that moment in court was “stunning.”
Erez Reuveni: It is the highest, most egregious violation of a lawyer’s code of ethics to mislead a court with intent.
We don’t know Ensign’s intent. It was during the hearing that the planes took off. The judge issued an order and immediately, Reuveni emailed the agencies involved. “…the judge specifically ordered us to not remove anyone… and to return anyone in the air.” But that didn’t happen. Instead, more than five hours after Boasberg’s order, the detainees, and other prisoners arrived at a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Reuveni said that moment was a “gut punch,” because it meant the DOJ “really did tell the court, screw you.”
Bove continues to downplay the allegations, saying, “Mr. Reuveni’s claims are a mix of falsehoods and wild distortions of reality.”
Reuveni was fired from his job at the DOJ for refusing to tell a judge Garcia was an MS-13 gang member and terrorist. He says he told a supervisor, “That is not factually correct. It is not legally correct. That is– that is a lie, and I cannot sign my name to that brief.”
Ultimately Reuveni’s blowing the whistle amounted to little more than a hill of beans in this crazy world, because Bove was rewarded for his unflinching loyalty to Donald Trump’s agenda with a lifetime appointment to the Third Circuit.
Reuveni acknowledged the personal risks in coming forward with his account of the lawlessness of the current DOJ. But he said, “I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. I would not be faithfully abiding by my oath if I stayed silent right now.”
Because Bari Weiss hasn’t truly left her fingerprint on 60 Minutes (yet), we get this very dark look at what it’s like at the DOJ in 2025.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
The post Things At The DOJ Are Just As Lawless As You Feared appeared first on Above the Law.
From all accounts, Bari Weiss — the newly installed head of CBS News — won’t rest until she turns the storied news organization into a sycophantic Trump administration mouthpiece. But, while that day is coming, it is not today. Or, perhaps more accurately, it wasn’t yesterday.
Yesterday, the venerable news program 60 Minutes featured the first interview with DOJ whistleblower Erez Reuveni. The former career attorney at the Department of Justice spoke out about the behavior of then-senior DOJ official Emil Bove. Bove was adamant the administration’s plan to disappear people — include Kilmar Abrego Garcia — to an El Salvadorian prison must continue, regardless of what any court might say about the matter. And he was quite explicit about that, according to Reuveni:
Bove emphasized, those planes need to take off, no matter what. And then after a pause, he also told all in attendance, and if some court should issue an order preventing that, we may have to consider telling that court, ‘f*** you.’
And that didn’t sit well with Reuveni, saying, “I felt like a bomb had gone off. Here is the number three official using expletives to tell career attorneys that we may just have to consider disregarding federal court orders.”
The report also details how others in the DOJ were much more comfortable adhering to Bove’s advice:
The next day, Saturday, lawyers for the prisoners sued. Judge James Boasberg called a hearing and asked government lawyer, Drew Ensign, whether the planes were leaving that weekend.
Erez Reuveni: And Ensign says to Boasberg, I don’t know. Now Ensign was at the same meeting that I was at the day before, where we were told in no uncertain terms that planes were taking off over the weekend, that those planes needed to take off no matter what. And he says, I don’t know.
Reuveni says that moment in court was “stunning.”
Erez Reuveni: It is the highest, most egregious violation of a lawyer’s code of ethics to mislead a court with intent.
We don’t know Ensign’s intent. It was during the hearing that the planes took off. The judge issued an order and immediately, Reuveni emailed the agencies involved. “…the judge specifically ordered us to not remove anyone… and to return anyone in the air.” But that didn’t happen. Instead, more than five hours after Boasberg’s order, the detainees, and other prisoners arrived at a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Reuveni said that moment was a “gut punch,” because it meant the DOJ “really did tell the court, screw you.”
Bove continues to downplay the allegations, saying, “Mr. Reuveni’s claims are a mix of falsehoods and wild distortions of reality.”
Reuveni was fired from his job at the DOJ for refusing to tell a judge Garcia was an MS-13 gang member and terrorist. He says he told a supervisor, “That is not factually correct. It is not legally correct. That is– that is a lie, and I cannot sign my name to that brief.”
Ultimately Reuveni’s blowing the whistle amounted to little more than a hill of beans in this crazy world, because Bove was rewarded for his unflinching loyalty to Donald Trump’s agenda with a lifetime appointment to the Third Circuit.
Reuveni acknowledged the personal risks in coming forward with his account of the lawlessness of the current DOJ. But he said, “I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. I would not be faithfully abiding by my oath if I stayed silent right now.”
Because Bari Weiss hasn’t truly left her fingerprint on 60 Minutes (yet), we get this very dark look at what it’s like at the DOJ in 2025.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
