ACLU lawyers name Emil Bove, now a federal judge, as possible witness in contempt inquiry

The former DOJ official — who was Trump's criminal defense lawyer before that — is one of nine names submitted to Judge Boasberg. And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs.

Lawyers from the ACLU who have been challenging the Trump administration’s extreme immigration enforcement on Tuesday suggested that Emil Bove, now a federal appeals court judge, should potentially be called as a witness in Chief Judge James Boasberg’s contempt inquiry over the administration’s actions regarding deportation flights that left the U.S. on March 15.

The filing came as Boasberg moves forward — after a seven-month delay — in his contempt inquiry regarding the two flights carrying individuals who were being deported under President Donald Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation, flights that went to El Salvador even after he ordered the administration to temporarily stop with AEA-based deportations on March 15.

Bove, a former personal criminal lawyer to Trump, was initially given a senior role in the Justice Department — a common occurrence in the second Trump administration. He is unique, however, in that he has since been confirmed to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Bove also stands out because, before Senate Republicans confirmed him to the Third Circuit on a 5-49 vote*, he was involved in several ethically questionable actions from the Justice Department in the first months of the second Trump administration — including those relating to the Eric Adams case and the administration’s preparations for Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation and the litigation against it. There has since also been reporting that Bove, while at DOJ, was supportive of the boat-strike murders that the administration has been engaged in in recent months.

After much delay due to the administration’s earlier appeal of Boasberg’s first order in the contempt inquiry, Boasberg on Monday ordered the parties — the ACLU representing the plaintiffs and DOJ representing the government — to provide “proposals” for how to proceed with the court’s “inquiry regarding a potential contempt referral,” including the “names of possible witnesses.“

In its responsive filing, the ACLU lawyers propose that DOJ be ordered to identify “all individuals involved in the decision not to halt the transfer of class members out of U.S. physical custody on March 15 and 16, 2025 … as well as all those with knowledge of the decision-making process.”

Then, relying on the names identified in fired DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni’s whistleblower disclosure, the plaintiffs’ lawyers put forward nine names as potential witnesses:

In addition to Bove and Reuveni himself — who, it was announced Tuesday, has been hired by Democracy Forward, an organization that previously was (but no longer is) involved as co-counsel in the case — the “potential witnesses” include Drew Ensign, the lawyer who appeared before Boasberg in court on March 15. Boasberg, at a hearing last week, had named Reuveni and Ensign as people he thought likely to be witnesses.

Additionally, the plaintiffs’ statement names August Flentje, who was Reuveni’s supervisor at the time of the Abrego Garcia hearing that led to Reuveni’s firing, as a potential witness, along with three other senior DOJ officials (James McHenry, Paul Perkins, and Yaakov Roth) and two senior Homeland Security officials (James Percival and Joseph Mazzara).

They note this is not an exhaustive list and that several other people unnamed in the Reuveni disclosure — within DOJ, DHS, and the State Department — also “may possess relevant information.”

DOJ’s response to Boasberg had not yet been submitted as of 5:15 p.m.

* = Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against Bove’s confirmation. Sen. Bill Hagerty did not vote.

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Closing my tabs

For those who don’t what this is, it’s my effort to give a little thank you to paid subscribers. “Closing my tabs” is, literally, me looking through the stories and cases open — the tabs open — on my computer and sharing with you all some of those I was unable to cover during the week but that I nonetheless want to let you know that I have on my radar. Oftentimes, they are issues that will eventually find their way back into the newsletter as a case discussed moves forward or something new happens that provides me with a reason to cover the story more in depth.

This Tuesday, these are the tabs I am closing: