‘Dead man walking’: DOJ lawyer claims he was fired after refusing to 'lie'

A former Department of Justice lawyer turned whistleblower on Thursday gave The New Yorker a peek at what life was like inside President Donald Trump's administration before he was fired.

Erez Reuveni was terminated in April by Attorney General Pam Bondi for admitting to a judge that Kilmar Abrego Garcia's deportation was a mistake. He told the outlet about being asked to compromise his professional ethics by signing onto briefs that he couldn't support or violate a court order.

In one instance, Reuveni said he was asked to sign an emergency order telling a lower court to stop Abrego Garcia from being returned to the United States. Reuveni said the document included arguments he considered unsupported. He ended up telling his boss that he "didn't sign up to lie."

After that, Reuveni said, “I was a dead man walking, in my mind," according to The New Yorker.

He also described a time when one of his supervisors lied to a judge. At a court hearing in April, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign told U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that he had "no knowledge" of any deportation flights planned," The New Yorker reported.

Reuveni was listening to the testimony in the courtroom that day. He said that Ensign's statement was untrue, and one of Reuveni's colleagues texted him "[Ensign] knows there are plans for AEA removals within the next 24 hours."

"They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution—candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,” Reuveni told the outlet. “That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.”