New York Supervisor Christopher Bove, a New York Counterterrorism Attorney, and the New York Office of the U.S. Attorney’s Office
The FBI worked with federal prosecutors in Manhattan to identify and arrest potential rioters from the New York region after Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.
The former prosecutor said Bove never voiced any reservations about the investigation. To the contrary, the former prosecutor said, Bove “gave strong, direct encouragement to the line prosecutors to aggressively pursue the investigation, legal process, support FBI, etc.”
The disconnect between Bove’s aggressive stance to hold rioters accountable for the Jan. 6 assault and his current hostility around the investigation has troubled some former colleagues.
Christopher O’Leary, who was in charge of counterterrorism in the New York field office at the time, said he never heard anyone express any concern about the investigations or the arrests. “We never heard any pushback from him or anybody in his office.”
Bove’s actions in New York since entering the Department of Justice weren’t immediately responded to by the Department of Justice.
Bove was part of the weekly meetings of the joint terrorism task force in New York which gave him an overview of cases and operations in the New York region.
“I always had a good working relationship with him, was impressed with him as an attorney, as a trustworthy partner, as a committed professional to our counterterrorism cases,” O’Leary said.
“I’m really surprised and disappointed by his actions, how he’s pursuing FBI agents and employees who were conducting investigations in the same manner that they would have conducted any investigation,” O’Leary said.
He has transferred top career attorneys with decades of experience to a different office that handles immigration enforcement, pushing them out of the department.
He’s also fired dozens of Capitol riot prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. One of the largest investigations in Justice Department history was handled during the Biden administration, as prosecutors were brought in to handle Capitol riot prosecutions.
On the FBI front, he has pushed out eight senior bureau officials, according to the memo, and demanded the names of FBI agents who worked Jan. 6 cases, touching off fears of possible mass firings at the bureau.
“No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties,” Bove wrote in an email last week addressed to all FBI employees.
Those who acted with corrupt intent, who blatantly disobeyed orders from Department leadership, and those who exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI should not be concerned, he said.
The FBI and Driscoll provided the Justice Department with a list of bureau employees. An email was sent to the FBI workforce saying that Driscoll is one of the agents who worked on the Jan 6 cases.
The same case was worked on by Bove, Driscoll and a former prosecutor in New York. Driscoll participated in the arrest of Fisher, who was ultimately sentenced to 120 days in prison for his activities at the U.S. Capitol. Bove was up late that night reviewing the legal paperwork to support the FBI, the former prosecutor said.
The ex-prosecutor said that if a list of attorneys worked in Jan 6. The cases were collected in the same manner as the FBI agents, “Emil’s name would surely be on that list as well.”
Three senior federal prosecutors resigned on Thursday after the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams was dropped.
The deputy No.2 official at the Justice Department put three assistant U.S. attorneys on leave while the Office of the Attorney General investigated their conduct in the case.
“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain a discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General,” Bove wrote in the letter.
One of the three assistant United States attorneys who are on leave is a Bronze star winner and graduate of Harvard Law School, who was once a clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts.
Two sources who spoke to anonymity said that John Keller and Kevin Driscoll, the top two officials in the Criminal Division, resigned after being asked to take over the Adams case.
A Justice Department memo made public called for the charges against him to be dropped. Adams has long said he’s innocent of any criminal wrongdoing.
His attorneys accused the U.S. attorneys of leaking sensitive and privileged information to the media as part of handling the case. The indictment alleged Adams used his position in New York City to benefit from illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel.
The fallout from the Adams case was the worst we’ve seen so far from the new DOJ, said a former senior Justice Department official in order to speak freely. The idea of dropping the case in this way was shocking to the former official.