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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice has commenced an ethics investigation into former DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, who Democrats now claim is a “whistleblower” against Emil Bove.
Bove, who is President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as an appellate judge on the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is one of Trump’s former personal attorneys. He also served in a senior role at the Department of Justice for several months at the beginning of Trump’s second term earlier this year.
Bove’s confirmation is expected to move forward through the Senate Judiciary Committee later this week, but Democrats on the committee are trying one last-ditch desperate play to try to derail him: Rallying behind the claims of Reuveni, who served for many years as a career attorney at DOJ, Democrats have pressed Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to bring Reuveni in for a hearing before proceeding with Bove’s nomination. At the center of Reuveni’s allegations against Bove are claims that Bove sought to violate court orders, particularly about immigration and deportations including the order surrounding illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
But now it’s coming to light here for the first time that Reuveni may have some serious issues of his own and that the Democrats’ star “whistleblower” does not have the most stellar record when it comes to ethics matters. Several Justice Department officials familiar with the matter told – News that in 2023 when Democrat Joe Biden was the president, Reuveni may have crossed major ethical boundaries by possibly revealing privileged information regarding then-Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials to personnel in the Florida Attorney General’s office.
The sources familiar with the matter say the crux of the Justice Department ethics investigation into Reuveni’s possible misconduct centers around a May 2023 phone call he sought with then-Florida Attorney General’s office attorney James Percival. Percival now works at DHS upon Trump’s return to the White House, but back in the first Trump term had worked at DOJ alongside Reuveni and had developed a friendship with him. When Biden was in the White House and his administration had taken several actions to open the flow of migrants into the United States, the state of Florida had won litigation against the Biden administration in which Reuveni as a career attorney represented the then-DHS. Specifically, in early 2023, the state of Florida won in the Northern District of Florida, which vacated certain policies that Biden’s DHS had implemented. However, two months later in May 2023 the Biden DHS tried another policy that the state of Florida alleged had violated the previous court order.
In an email, Reuveni sought a one-on-one phone call with Percival. “Hey there. Can you give me a call?” Reuveni wrote to Percival in the email on the afternoon of Friday, May 12, 2023, before including his phone number.
“I’m around today doing absolutely nothing,” Reuveni added in the email, which has since been obtained by – News. “But I’d like to chat without the rest of the team for a couple of minutes on some things. If you’re tied up now let me know when you might be free.”
Percival and Reuveni did end up connecting and speaking shortly thereafter, multiple sources familiar with the matter told – News, and during the phone call these sources say that Reuveni told Percival that the DOJ lawyers knew nothing about the newly-issued DHS policy that allegedly violated the previous court order and were upset with their clients. The sources say Reuveni also asked Percival not to file a sanctions request against the attorneys, and expressed his lack of surprise that a court had already issued a temporary restraining order against the new policy. The sources say Reuveni called that “straightforward.” These sources say that Percival relayed the contents of this conversation to several people contemporaneously and that this is now the subject of the ongoing ethics investigation into possible misconduct by Reuveni.
What’s more, Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle confirmed the existence of this investigation to – News on Tuesday.
“Mr. Reuveni’s whistleblower complaint is currently pending. So while I will not comment on him directly, I will say that this Department of Justice will not employ morally or ethically challenged lowlifes,” Mizelle told – News. “An investigation of Mr. Reuveni’s reported misconduct is underway.”
Reuveni has not replied to an emailed request for comment from – News for this story.
UPDATE 2:53 p.m. ET:
After the publication of this story, one of Reuveni’s attorneys–Dana Gold, who is senior counsel and director of the “Democracy Protection Initiative” at the Government Accountability project–sent – News a statement in response to this matter.
“This smacks of a classic attempt at shooting the messenger to avoid addressing the message,” Gold said. “This is an all-too-common tactic to silence whistleblowers.”
