Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
Emil Bove, a high-level official at the Department of Justice who got that job as a reward for being President Donald Trump’s former criminal lawyer, is ready for his next act: a lifetime seat as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. So many allegations about Bove’s conduct would have torpedoed his nomination under any noncriminal president, but for Trump, Bove’s behavior is a feature, not a bug.
Last month, whistleblower Erez Reuveni, the DOJ attorney fired for refusing to sign court filings saying wrongly deported Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a terrorist, revealed that Bove told DOJ lawyers that planes to El Salvador needed to take off no matter what and that they would need to weigh telling the courts “fuck you” and ignore a court order to the contrary.
When asked about this during his confirmation hearing, Bove dropped a whole I-am-but-a-simple-country-lawyer bit and said he simply couldn’t recall such a thing.
Sure, buddy.
Whistleblower emails released on Thursday show DOJ attorneys discussing—as it was happening—Bove’s wild demand to ignore court orders and let planeloads of deportees take off regardless. They even specifically referenced the “fuck you” comment.
If it didn’t seem bad enough that a federal judicial nominee thinks the government doesn’t have to follow orders, how about that same nominee refusing, in front of God and Congress and everyone, to rule out a third term for the guy who is nominating him? Or that he also refuses to denounce the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection helmed by the guy who has nominated.
It’s totally, definitely clear that Bove will bring an even temper, respect for judicial authority, and nonpartisan fairness to the bench, yesiree.
Fam, is it bad if El Salvador and the Trump Administration can’t get their stories straight about who is doing what?
When the government was ordered to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, whom they mistakenly deported to El Salvador, they initially claimed they had no power to do so, because he was under the control of El Salvador. Then Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele did a gruesome little vaudeville routine with Trump in the Oval Office where they both said they couldn’t possibly have the power to bring Abrego Garcia home.
Of course, the administration did manage to bring Abrego Garcia home when they felt like it—but only after ginning up criminal charges against him. And for whatever reason, El Salvador no longer feels like playing along. It said in a court filing earlier this week that “the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities.”
Judges are not happy with this little back-and-forth and want explanations, but the DOJ’s capacity to keep refusing is near-infinite.
Fam, is it bad if the head of the FBI is a thin-skinned paranoiac?
As FBI Director Kash Patel rampages through his agency, he is now demanding polygraph tests for employees because he needs to find out who made fun of him.
Dozens of officials have reportedly been asked to take polygraphs, though it isn’t clear if those are all related to Patel’s fragile ego. Patel is on the hunt to find the leaker who told the media about Patel’s goofy demand for a service weapon so he could play at being an agent. Patel’s craving for absolute loyalty is so great that he threatened a top official with a polygraph simply because he was friends with former FBI agent Peter Strzok, an obsession for Trump after the former agent criticized him in some texts.
Officials are also being questioned about whether they have ever said anything negative about Patel. Come on, man. This is just pathetic. You’d think the FBI would have something better to do, but the agency is busy disintegrating over the so-called Epstein files right now, so Patel probably has some free time.
Fam, is it good if the party of small government wants to see your private medical records?
Continuing its transphobic full-court press, the Department of Justice is demanding private patient data from hospitals and doctors that provide gender-affirming care to minors. Surely, there’s no danger in turning over the private medical records of trans kids to this administration, right?
The DOJ’s subpoena of over 20 providers is both an attempt to intimidate those providers and to figure out a way to access confidential medical information in states that have passed laws protecting that data from being used in nightmare witch hunts just like this.
The DOJ’s consumer protection unit appears to be conducting the investigation, which appears to be the way the administration thinks it can access private medical records: Gotta figure out if these monstrous doctors have been lying to turn kids trans.
This fixation on gender-affirming care being some sort of fraud isn’t limited to the DOJ. The Federal Trade Commission just held its daylong invite-only workshop about how providing gender-affirming care is somehow fraud. Apparently, during the workshop, a DOJ official said that the agencies are investigating drug manufacturers for possibly violating drug marketing laws by prescribing them for gender-affirming care. Terrific.
Fam, is it bad if your lawyers get sanctioned for using fake cases?
If you’re Mike Lindell, then the answer to the above is yes, yes indeed. During Lindell’s recent Colorado trial, he was sued for defamation by former Dominion employee Eric Coomer over his wild allegations that Coomer somehow used Dominion machines to rig the 2020 election.
Lindell lost that case, and it turns out that his lawyers are each losing $3,000 for filing a court document chock-full of mistakes, including cases entirely made up by AI. The judge in Lindell’s trial was understandably not thrilled with this move, and to be honest $3,000 is a pretty light punishment.
But since Lindell has had quite a bit of trouble actually paying his lawyers in the past, they’re probably out a whole lot more.