Far be it for me to argue that an assistant United States attorney wouldn’t lie. Some would. Some have. Some do. That said, the lies generally aren’t of the nature of making things up out of whole cloth. They are also not of the nature that could be readily disproven, whether by written evidence or the testimony of a room full of people with similar claims to credibility. Career AUSAs do not tend to lie, or even massage the truth, when there is a strong possibility that they will get nailed to the wall.

Career assistant Erez Reuveni had been on the job for almost 15 years, long before the current administration and throughout Trump 1.0. It wasn’t until he was given the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a matter of such significant profile that it wouldn’t be handed to the office goofball, that a problem arose. Reuveni did the one thing that his DoJ superiors found intolerable. He told Judge Paula Xinis the truth, that the rendition of Abrego Garcia was a mistake. The Trump DoJ doesn’t make mistakes. Or to be more precise, it doesn’t admit to the mistakes it makes.

That was the end of Reuveni’s career at the Department of Justice. He was suspended the next day, then fired. But he isn’t going silently into the night, having filed a 27-page account with the Government Accountability Project.

In March and early April, the filing states, Mr. Reuveni “became aware of the plans of D.O.J. leadership to resist court orders that would impede potentially illegal efforts to deport noncitizens, and further became aware of the details to execute those plans.”

Top officials at the Justice Department and the White House sought to defy federal court orders “through lack of candor, deliberate delay and disinformation,” his account states.

Former Trump criminal defense lawyer, now Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, dismissed Reuveni’s account as utterly false, “made by a disgruntled former employee and then leaked to the press in violation of ethical obligations.” Can Reuveni be so easily dismissed as a “disgruntled former employee”? He says he’s got the receipts.

The filing, however, suggests a copious trail of emails, texts and phone records that would support Mr. Reuveni’s version of events. It notes that he was recently promoted, and had diligently defended controversial immigration policies of the first Trump administration.

Of the revelations in his account, one is of particularly timely significance.

A pivotal meeting occurred on March 14, when Mr. Bove, a senior official in the deputy attorney general’s office, spoke bluntly about the administration’s plans. He informed his subordinates that Mr. Trump would soon invoke the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly fly a group of immigrants out of the country that weekend. Two other officials in that office, James McHenry and Paul Perkins, were in attendance, as well as Mr. Reuveni’s supervisors, Drew Ensign and August Flentje, according to the whistle-blower document.

Mr. Bove “stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what,” according to Mr. Reuveni’s account. Mr. Bove then broached “the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated.”

“Bove stated that D.O.J. would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such order,” according to the account. “Mr. Reuveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned, and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in the room. Silence overtook the room.”

Would Bove do such a thing?

Emil Bove III, believed to be taken upon learning of the birth of his child.

The question arises as Bove is preparing for his hearing to be confirmed as a judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. NRO’s Ed Whelan, who has never been considered a friend of woke judges, had some critical words for Bove when his nomination was first announced. For example, Ed offered this.

In his four months at DOJ, Bove has distinguished himself (as the New York Times puts it) as one of DOJ’s “most formidable and feared political appointees” and as the “main enforcer of Mr. Trump’s demands for retribution.” One of his most thuggish admirers praises him for being “a savage” and “mean.”

His conclusion then was that Bove lacked the character and integrity to be a judge. That was before Reuveni’s disclosures. With this new information, Ed had this to offer.

A few weeks ago, I outlined my concerns about Emil Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit. I have had nothing to say about the nomination since then. In part that’s because there had been no further evidence that would substantiate or dispel my concerns about Bove’s character and integrity. In part it’s because I figured the stakes are small: If my concerns are unsound, Bove would probably be a decent or even good appellate judge. If my concerns are sound, it’s arguably better to have him out of DOJ and in a position where he would have little opportunity or incentive to act on his worst impulses.

If Bove’s fitness for the bench was in serious doubt before, even from someone who supports the most conservative bench imaginable, the question is even more extreme now. But why, you ask, would the stakes matter all that much, given that it at least gets Bove out of Main Justice where the damage he can cause, like illegally renditioning aliens (and the occasional citizen, oopsie) and lying to federal judges, is very serious?

There is also the danger that Bove, if confirmed, would leap to the top of Trump’s list for the next Supreme Court vacancy. If you think that’s farfetched, look to what Trump himself proclaimed when he announced the nomination:

He will end the Weaponization of Justice, restore the Rule of Law, and do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Emil Bove will never let you down! [Underlining added.]

Trump isn’t often right, but he’s right this time. Emil Bove will never let [him] down.