WASHINGTON (CN) — President Donald Trump’s nominee for a key appellate court vacancy and a top Justice Department official told colleagues that the agency might have to tell a federal court “fuck you” if it wanted to carry out the White House’s mass deportation operations, according to a whistleblower report released Tuesday.
Emil Bove, nominated to the Third Circuit, also used his position as principal associate deputy attorney general to advise the Homeland Security Department that it could deplane migrants deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order requiring deportation flights to turn around, the report said.
The accusations from Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department attorney fired in April, come as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to question Bove in a forthcoming nomination hearing.
Reuveni told lawmakers in his report, first reported by the New York Times, that he had been involved in the March lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s effort to deport five Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.
At the time, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had issued a temporary restraining order against the deportations, demanding that any flights carrying the migrants turn around and return to the U.S. The Barack Obama appointee's ruling was later struck down by the Supreme Court.
But the Justice Department and Drew Ensign, the agency’s deputy assistant attorney general for immigration litigation, misled the court about the status of deportation...
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