Bondi: Whistleblower was ‘disgruntled employee,’ not telling truth about Trump

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday characterized former DOJ whistleblower Erez Reuveni as a “disgruntled employee” and “leaker” who is telling false stories about the Trump administration’s alleged internal dialogue that encouraged President Donald Trump to defy court orders when they interfere with his policies.

Reuveni told the New York Times in a story published Thursday that federal judge appointee Emil Bove made repeated suggestions about defying court injunctions and rulings that limited Trump’s executive orders on immigration, one of which led to the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and hundreds of other illegal immigrants to CECOT in El Salvador.

The administration was “thumbing its nose at the courts” over the due process rights when it deported Abrego Garcia and the others to CECOT, Reuveni said.

“If they can do this sort of thing to Abrego Garcia, to 238 people that nobody knows, and send them to CECOT forever with no due process, they can do that to anyone,” Reuveni told the Times. “It should be deeply, deeply worrisome … that the government can, without showing evidence to anyone of anything, spirit you away on a plane to wherever, forever.”

Bondi strikes back

Bondi pointed out that the timing of the Times story was very convenient; Bove’s confirmation hearing to be a judge in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals took place on Friday, the day after the story came out.

Bove previously served as one of Trump’s criminal defense attorneys and was a top official in the Justice Department.

“We support legitimate whistleblowers, but this disgruntled employee is not a whistleblower — he’s a leaker asserting false claims seeking five minutes of fame, conveniently timed just before a confirmation hearing and a committee vote,” Bondi said on X.

“As Mr. Bove testified and as the Department has made clear, there was no court order to defy, as we successfully argued to the DC Circuit when seeking a stay, when they stayed Judge [James] Boasberg’s lawless order. And no one was ever asked to defy a court order,” she went on.

“This is another instance of misinformation being spread to serve a narrative that does not align with the facts. This ‘whistleblower’ signed 3 briefs defending DOJ’s position in this matter, and his subsequent revisionist account arose only after he was fired because he violated his ethical duties to the department,” her post concluded.

The emails

At issue are emails Reuveni released that he says show Bove favored rush deportations and suggested the DOJ might be forced to say “f*** you to court orders in order to implement Trump’s executive orders.

There has been a very definite conflict playing out between the executive branch and the legislative one.

Trump was ordered to turn around planeloads of immigrants that were already in the air, but it did not happen.

Did Trump defy the order or did it come too late to do anything about the planes already in the air?

It’s not out of reach for someone in the administration to say what Bove is alleged to have said, in the heat of the moment and sort of hypothetically.