A complaint concerning a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, went unnoticed for more than two months, raising worries that an internal watchdog has gone dormant.
As a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove III fired dozens of lawyers and agents without any stated cause, in seeming violation of civil service protections and longtime department practice.
At the Justice Department, Emil Bove III played an outsize role in the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to take control of the agency it argues has been “weaponized” against President Trump and other conservatives.
The senator’s treatment of whistle-blowers detailing allegations against Emil Bove, the Trump loyalist and appeals court pick, has had a chilling effect, critics say.
Senator Charles E. Grassley accused Democrats of trying “to weaponize my respect for whistle-blowers and the whole whistle-blowing process against me and, in return, against” Emil Bove.
The decision to sustain the prosecution of the Texas Democrat stands in contrast to the department’s decisions to drop or downgrade investigations of Trump allies or those he deems politically useful.
Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, was accused of bribery and money laundering on behalf of an oil and gas company owned by Azerbaijan’s leaders.
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