By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A top U.S. Justice Department official tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as an appellate judge profanely pressured department attorneys to defy court orders to carry out mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally, according to a whistleblower complaint seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
The complaint against Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, which was first reported by the New York Times, was made public the day before Bove is due to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on his nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
It was submitted to the Justice Department's Inspector General by Erez Reuveni, the former acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, who was fired in April after he admitted in a court hearing that the federal government made a mistake when it deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
Current department officials dismissed Reuveni's statements as false, describing him as a disgruntled former employee. Bove, who served as one of Trump's defense attorneys, could not immediately be reached for comment.
In his complaint, Reuveni said that during a March 14 meeting with senior officials, Bove told them that the government planned to deport migrants over the weekend under an 18th Century wartime powers law known as the Alien Enemies Act on one or more scheduled flights. Bove told them the planes "needed to take...
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