'Did You Suggest Telling The Courts F--- You In Any Manner?': Adam Schiff Gives Emil Bove The 3rd Degree

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At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) questioned Emil Bove, nominee to be United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit, and current Deputy Attorney General.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Bovee, I want to turn to the meeting that Mr. Ruvaney, the whistleblower, has written an

00:10extensive complaint about. The hearing started with the chairman reading a social media post by

00:17the Deputy Attorney General Blanche, who is present today, but not under oath, nor is that

00:23social media post under oath. So let me ask you, since you are under oath, in the complaint

00:29it says, Bovee stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts, fuck you, and

00:36ignoring any such court order. Did you say anything of that kind in the meeting? Senator,

00:43I have no recollection of saying anything of that kind. To the extent I use the-

00:47Wouldn't you recall, Mr. Bovee, if you said or suggested during a meeting with Justice Department

00:52lawyers, maybe they should consider telling the court, fuck you? It seems to me that would

00:57be something you'd remember, unless that's the kind of thing you say frequently.

01:01Well, I've certainly said things encouraging litigators at the department to fight hard

01:07for valid positions that we have to take in defense of our clients.

01:10And have you frequently suggested that they say, fuck you, and ignore court orders? Is

01:14that also something you frequently do, such you might not remember doing it on this occasion?

01:19No. And as I explained, I have never directed-

01:21So did you or did you not make those comments during that meeting?

01:25Which comments, Senator?

01:28You really need me to repeat it? Did you suggest, as Mr. Ruvani wrote, that DOJ would

01:34need to consider telling the courts, fuck you, and ignore any such court order?

01:38I did not suggest that there would be any need to consider ignoring court orders. At the point

01:45of that meeting, there were no court orders to discuss.

01:48Well, did you suggest telling the courts, fuck you, in any manner?

01:51I don't recall.

01:53You just don't remember that. Well, let me ask you this. It also says in the complaint,

01:59Beauvais indicated and stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter

02:04what. These are the planes that a judge was ordering not be used to render people to a maximum security

02:11prison outside the country. Did you say during that meeting, did you stress to all in attendance

02:16that the planes needed to take off no matter what? Senator, your characterization is not

02:21accurate. It's not my characterization. It's the characterization of a decorated prosecutor

02:26who was in that meeting. Are you saying that he's lying? As I said at the beginning of the hearing-

02:33No, no, I'm not interested in what you said at the beginning of the hearing. I'm interested in

02:36whether you stressed to people in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what. Did

02:41you say that?

02:46I certainly conveyed the importance of the upcoming operation.

02:49Well, don't paraphrase here. Did you tell people in attendance the planes needed to take off no

02:56matter what? I don't recall the specific words that I used. Wouldn't you recall saying that if you had

03:01instructed that the planes needed to take off no matter what, including whether the court ordered

03:06otherwise? You wouldn't remember that? This is a mischaracterization, Senator. There were no

03:10court orders at this point. Well, there was a court order, wasn't there? No. Wasn't there a court

03:15order by Judge Boesberg, if not in this specific case, then in related cases, that people not be sent

03:23out of the country until the court could rule? Wasn't there a court order? Not at the time of that

03:28meeting, Senator. Did you participate in the decision not to disseminate that oral court order

03:34prior to the written court order to other agencies so those planes would not take off, so those planes

03:39would turn around? Were you involved in the decision to withhold that court order from the responsible

03:44agencies? I think it's clear that I participated in this. Yes or no? I participated in this matter,

03:50and I'm not going to get into the contents of legal advice. I did over the course of time, as many lawyers

03:54have provided advice about the scope of court orders. I'm interested in whether you participated in the

03:59willful violation of court orders as alleged in this complaint. Absolutely not. Let me ask you this,

04:04Mr. Bouvet, if there are notes of that meeting, will you provide them to this committee?

04:11I defer to the committee and to the executive branch on the procedure. And if the committee requests them,

04:15will you provide those notes to the committee? I defer to the executive branch on the handling of that

04:20request. And let me ask you about notes from another meeting, which are contesting here, and that is the

04:24meeting over the decision to dismiss the case in New York, the corruption case against the mayor of New

04:30York. According to Ms. Sassoon, the U.S. attorney at the time, during the meeting with Adams' attorneys,

04:39where she described Adams' attorneys repeatedly urging what amounted to a quid pro quo, that you

04:48admonished one of the lawyers in the room to stop taking notes. Is that true?

04:52I don't believe I instructed that attorney to stop taking notes. I did remark on the fact that he

04:58was taking extensive notes, yes. And why did it concern you that he was taking notes of that meeting?

05:04Because at that point in the meeting, we were discussing who was responsible for media leaks,

05:09and I was making the point that only the prosecutors had created an extensive record that could support

05:13detailed leaks. And you were concerned, were you, that information about this potential quid pro quo might

05:20become public? Was that the concern? I've explained that there was no quid pro quo.

05:24Will you provide the notes of that meeting, which you, according to the U.S. attorney,

05:30instructed be collected at the end of the meeting? I think a member of my staff may have given that

05:35instruction outside my presence, and I defer to the committee and the executive branch on records

05:41requests and how those should be handled. Well, I would request that we seek these records,

05:44which go to the truthfulness or lack of truthfulness of this witness. There's a reason why, if I may,

05:50my colleagues have gone over at least as much as this. There must be a reason why prosecutors quit

05:58rather than following orders from you they considered unethical. There must be a reason why prosecutors

06:04complained about you in your own office, why defense attorneys complained about you in your own office,

06:09why the judge in the case involving the dismissal of the charges in New York said everything here

06:15smacks up a bargain. You testified earlier that the objective evidence, uh, overwhelmingly made it

06:23clear that it was not a bargain. That, that, there must be a reason why everyone disagrees with you,

06:29Mr. Bouvet, and people feel it necessary to give up a job they love at the Department of Justice and quit

06:35because they won't go along with what they consider unethical and immoral orders from you.

06:40There must be a reason why that is so true of so many, and this court needs to get to the bottom of it.

06:46I yield back. Well, as I, as a former judge, I like being referred to as the court,

06:50but as the chair, I will turn it over to Senator Cruz. Thank you, madam.

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