Donald Trump's former defense lawyer in his election interference case forced the acting FBI director to turn over the names of all bureau employees involved in Jan. 6 prosecutions, but Emil Bove – who now serves as deputy attorney general – played a role himself in some of those cases.
Acting FBI director Brian Driscoll notified agency staff Thursday night in a memo that he had complied with a directive to turn over a list of names to the Justice Department that he said came from Bove, who served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York before going to work for Trump and attended weekly meetings where Jan. 6 cases were discussed, reported The Daily Beast.
“He was certainly knowledgeable of everything going on,” said Chris O’Leary, a retired FBI agent and former member of New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). “And he easily could have spoken up and protested back then, but he didn’t, because he didn’t see anything wrong – and he’s hypocritical doing it now.”
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Bove regularly attended JTTF meetings with FBI officials to discuss cases against the U.S. Capitol rioters, all of whom Trump pardoned almost immediately after returning to office, and while most of those prosecutions were based in Washington, D.C., SDN prosecutors and the New York JTTF were directly involved in tracking down suspects in their area.
"Given our significant concerns regarding your personal safety and security, we provided the lists on the classified enclave with caveats that appropriately identify the information as law enforcement sensitive," Driscoll told FBI employees in his memo. "We also reiterated once again our concerns for the safety of our personnel, and the risks posed to you and your families should these lists become public."
Bove had accused the acting FBI director of insubordination because he had resisted turning over the names, instead of merely employee ID numbers, but O'Leary said the now-deputy attorney general attended meetings with Driscoll and acting assistant director Robert Kissane, both of whom were members of the New York JTTF, and even socialized with them and other task force members.
So [Bove] knows Brian Driscoll…and Rob Kissane extremely well,” O’Leary said.
O'Leary rejects claims by Trump – who is installing another one of his criminal defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, as deputy assistant attorney general, bumping Bove to No. 3 in the DOJ – that the FBI is part of some "deep state" conspiracy against him.
“The idea that there’s some politically motivated Deep State in the bureau is absurd,” O’Leary said. “We don’t stand around the water cooler, bulls------- about politics. Nobody cares about any of that stuff. We care about cases and operations and arrests.”
"Usually in a week like this, we’re talking about the Super Bowl," he added, "instead of people worrying about losing their jobs.”
