Gift article from New York Times Justice Dept. Whistle-Blower Warns of Trump Administration’s Assault on the Law
In an interview with The New York Times, a former Justice Department lawyer, Erez Reuveni, said officials pressed subordinates to mislead judges, and dared the courts to stop it.

“The Department of Justice is thumbing its nose at the courts, and putting Justice Department attorneys in an impossible position where they have to choose between loyalty to the agenda of the president and their duty to the court,” Mr. Reuveni added.

Attorney General Pam Bondi denied his account on social media on Thursday. “This disgruntled employee is not a whistle-blower — he’s a leaker asserting false claims seeking five minutes of fame, conveniently timed just before a confirmation hearing and a committee vote,” she wrote.

Ms. Bondi insisted no one at the department was ever asked to defy a court order. “As Mr. Bove testified and as the department has made clear, there was no court order to defy, as we successfully argued” to a federal appeals court, she added.

In his whistle-blower complaint, Mr. Reuveni chronicled the lengths the administration appeared willing to go, describing a particularly shocking moment that crystallized its approach. As the officials prepared to invoke a rarely used wartime law to send immigrants to the Salvadoran prison, the complaint said, Mr. Bove told subordinates at a meeting on March 14 that the Justice Department may end up ignoring court orders, using an expletive to underscore his point.