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.

In the early days of the first Trump Administration, Erez Reuveni, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, went to court to defend the new President’s travel ban on foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

"If they can do this sort of thing to Abrego Garcia, to 238 people that nobody knows, and send them to CECOT forever with no due process, they can do that to anyone," Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department lawyer who has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Senate Judiciary Committee told The New York Times.

Allegations that a top Justice Department official sought to defy the courts have upended a key Trump judicial nomination.

If, as a government lawyer, Emil Bove can’t be trusted to follow court orders, should the Senate entrust him with reviewing, much less upholding, them?

The Senate panel considering Emil Bove's nomination to be a judge has emails regarding allegations he advised DOJ to defy court orders.

According to the whistleblower's claims, Bove said at a March meeting that the DOJ “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’" and ignore any potential court order that would enjoin removals before they could be carried out.

In comments from the bench, Xinis confirmed that she had little faith in Giles’ testimony and that it had undermined rather than bolstered the government’s position. “The evidence is not credible,” Xinis said. “It’s insufficient and incredible.”

Senator Dick Durbin has said the messages appear to support claims that the Trump administration defied court orders.

The attorney general, limping through a turbulent week, lashed out at a whistleblower alleging high-level DOJ misconduct.