Erez Reuveni, a top lawyer who was kicked to the curb by the Department of Justice for not defending their agenda to deport men to El Salvador without due process, has officially blown the whistle.
The lawyer filed a 27-page report Tuesday, obtained by The New York Times, detailing the many ways in which Attorney General Pam Bondi and judicial nominee Emil Bove III have illegally dodged and intimidated others to get their way.
On one hand, this information feels less than shocking given how President Donald Trump and his team outright ignored orders to stop planes that were en route to detainment centers. However, this marks the first time someone who was on the inside has spoken out about it specifically.
In the filing, Reuveni recalls how Bove—whose nomination for circuit court judge is scheduled for Wednesday—blatantly ignored Judge James E. Boasberg’s orders to keep planeloads of immigrants on U.S. soil. Not only that, but Reuveni’s supervisor, Drew Ensign, allegedly lied to Boasberg’s face during a hearing when asked if he knew about any upcoming plans to fly immigrants to other detention centers in the next 24 to 48 hours.
According to the report, Ensign told Boasberg, “I don’t know the answer to that question.”
But if you ask Reuveni, the potential new circuit judge had informed him just the day before.
“Ensign had been present in the previous day’s meeting when Emil Bove stated clearly that one or more planes containing individuals subject to the [Alien Enemies Act] would be taking off over the weekend no matter what.”
Reuveni went on to detail how Bove and others withheld information for as long as possible from Boasberg to keep the deportation flights in the air.
And as the former top lawyer laid out example after example showing how the administration was brazenly defying the courts, he eventually recalled how he was faced with his own ultimatum.
In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was wrongly abducted by ICE and deported to El Salvador’s terrorism confinement center, Reuveni was tasked with defending the U.S. government’s decision to keep Garcia locked up. However, as the facts unfolded, Reuveni could not. According to his filing, he was asked by another supervisor, August Flentje, to sign testimony stating that Garcia was a terrorist. Ultimately, he chose not to, which led to his firing.
While Garcia has returned back to the U.S. and Trump’s cronies lost the fight of labeling him as a dangerous MS-13 gang member, his legal battles are still ongoing. As of Monday, a judge ordered his release for an ongoing human smuggling case—the Trump administration’s latest claim.
However, the DOJ is threatening to deport Garcia the moment he steps outside of jail. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement obtained by CBS Monday that Garcia “will never go free on American soil.”
Then again, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes doesn’t see a reason for all of the hostility.
“Overall, the Court cannot find from the evidence presented that Abrego Garcia’s release clearly and convincingly poses an irremediable danger to other persons or to the community,” she wrote.
Related | Freeing Widmer: An aunt’s journey to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison
Garcia’s case is ongoing, but he may be one of the lucky men who has seen the outside of El Salvador’s CECOT. Of the over 250 immigrants deported, so far only Garcia has been granted any sort of due process for the crimes he is accused of committing.
Other men, such as 24-year-old Widmer Josneyder Agelviz-Sanguino, are still being held despite the only provided evidence for their imprisonment being the tattoos on their body.