A top lawyer in the Department of Justice seeking a seat on the federal bench is facing allegations that he was a key player in pushing the Trump administration to ignore court orders and make sure deportation flights took off no matter what judges said.
The allegations, made by a Department of Justice whistleblower in a report obtained by USA TODAY, are now hanging over Bove's nomination by President Donald Trump to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which hears appeals from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The whistleblower, Ere Reuveni, was suspended from his job at the Department of Justice after he told a court that the Trump administration erred in deporting a Maryland man to El Salvador despite a court order to keep him in the United States. His complaint leaked the night before Bove's hearing.
