by A former Justice Department attorney claimed that the Trump administration was ignoring the courts and that his former colleagues were being forced to choose between their legal ethics and the president’s goals.
Erez Reuveni, the attorney who submitted a comprehensive whistleblower claim to the Senate last month, expressed his mounting concern in an interview with The New York Times while defending the administration’s harsh deportation policy. He expressed his willingness to testify before Congress or in court regarding what he said was a deliberate attempt by the administration to disregard courts and hundreds of migrants’ rights to due process.
Speaking up about his experiences for the first time, Mr. Reuveni was dismissed in April after he went to court to defend the administration’s erroneous deportation of a man in Maryland who was accused of disobeying a higher authority’s order.
He warned that the March 15 fast-moving jets carrying immigrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador were a disturbing illustration of the administration’s disrespect for the law and facts. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was first held at the prison known as CECOT, was also on the flights that took off that day.
According to Mr. Reuveni, if they can do this to Abrego Garcia and 238 unknown individuals and put them to CECOT indefinitely without following the proper procedures, they can do the same to anybody. Anyone who is concerned about their safety and freedom should be extremely concerned about the government’s ability to whisk you away on a plane to any location, forever, without providing any proof.
Shortly before Emil Bove III, a top department official, testified before legislators over his candidacy as a federal appeals court judge, he submitted his complaint. The administration’s strategy has been quite obvious, although Mr. Bove and his supervisor have refuted the main points of Mr. Reuveni’s story. However, emails, phone logs, and text messages that The Times was able to examine seem to support the whistleblower’s account of what happened, providing a behind-the-scenes account of confidential discussions and meetings that reveal Justice Department executives pushing to take bold legal risks.
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