This Is Not Bove’s First Brush With Misconduct Allegations

Behind The Headlines With Andrew Weissmann, Vol. 2.4.d

Dear subscribers,

The legal community is in a justifiable uproar over the conduct of acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. Over a half-dozen career DOJ employees have resigned rather than carry out Bove's order to drop the criminal case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, which sure looks like a quid pro quo deal to have him tow the line on Trump’s immigration raids in NYC.

But this is not Bove’s first brush with impropriety, as found by a court.

Bove supervised the criminal case against Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad when Bove was a supervisor in the SDNY US Attorney’s Office. Sadr was charged with violating US sanctions against Iran. But the government prosecutors were found by the court to have failed to disclose evidence they had against the Iranian banker, and then misled the court about their failure to disclose it. Indeed, one of the prosecutors had said that they should “bury” the document to keep the defense from noticing that the prosecution had not properly disclosed it before. The judge concluded the case was "marred by repeated failures to disclose exculpatory evidence.”

Bove got involved, at the latest, when the whole affair blew up when the defense realized what had occurred and alerted the court. In internal emails, Bove said that the prosecution's excuse to the defense about what had occurred was a "flat lie.” Later, when required by the Judge to submit a sworn affidavit, Bove walked that back (notably, the court did not agree with Bove’s belated effort to walk back his initial assessment). To see Bove’s Affidavit paragraphs 31 & 34, click here.

The whole affair led the trial judge Alison Nathan, now a Second Circuit appellate judge, to seek referral of the prosecutors to the DOJ office of professional responsibility for their conduct. In ordering public disclosure of the documents about the prosecutions’ handling of this matter, the court stated: “[t]he prosecutorial misconduct in this case is of exceptional public interest, bearing both on the fair administration of justice for criminal defendants and the efficacious prosecution of violations of federal law.”

In addressing Bove’s role, the court stated “[t]he prosecutors — including the Unit Chiefs [Bove was one of the two Unit Chiefs]— dug themselves in deeper rather than squarely take responsibility for their past missteps.” Nathan went on to find: ”[t]he supervising Unit Chiefs appear to have offered little in the way of supervision,” wrote Judge Nathan. The court found there were “grave derelictions of prosecutorial responsibility” and “systemic” prosecutorial misconduct in the case, although (perhaps not wanting to ruin their careers permanently) she found it did not rise to the level of intentional misconduct, but warranted investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

The severity of the misconduct can perhaps best be measured but what happened to Sadr: although he had been found guilty by the jury, the prosecution dismissed the case entirely. And he went free.

Bove is now the man who is the #2 at the helm of the Justice Department.

To read the two decisions by the court, the links are here and here.