The DOJ’s internal watchdog has ignored 20 separate instances of wrongdoing by the Trump administration and the lawyers for one fired whistleblower are now urging Congress to address what they’re calling the “apparent collapse” of the office.
Their client is Erez Reuveni, a 15-year DOJ veteran who was fired in April 2025 after he told a federal judge the truth that an immigrant had been deported to El Salvador by mistake. He refused orders to misrepresent facts in court. He was fired for it.
His disclosure wasn’t just about one case. It detailed a pattern DOJ officials ignoring court orders, presenting arguments with no legal basis, and misrepresenting facts to federal judges across three separate immigration cases.
The most explosive allegation senior DOJ official Emil Bove told attorneys in a March 14 meeting that deportation flights needed to take off “no matter what” and that if a court tried to stop them, DOJ might need to tell the judges “f*** you.” Asked about it under oath at his Senate confirmation hearing, Bove said he had “no recollection.”
Senate Democrats later released texts and emails corroborating Reuveni’s account. A second whistleblower came forward with their own disclosure. The evidence kept piling up.
And the Inspector General kept doing nothing.
This is what institutional collapse looks like. The office created to root out misconduct at the Justice Department has apparently sat on 20 referrals while the administration openly defied court orders, fired attorneys for telling the truth, and gutted the oversight infrastructure designed to stop exactly this. The watchdog isn’t watching.
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