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Boasberg made no mention of Bove yesterday in court. I’d imagine that Boasberg would wait until the testimony of other witnesses makes Bove’s testimony essential before he goes kicking the giant ant hill of summoning an appeals court judge into his court for a possible contempt of court referral.

Bove — who has denied proposing to defy the courts and said he doesn’t recall the fuck you remark — is now a Trump-appointed federal appeals court judge, setting up the potential for a titanic clash over his testimony in the contempt inquiry.

A key witness is former acting DAG Emil Bove, who, according to Reuveni and internal comms, allegedly told DOJ lawyers in advance of the AEA deportations that they might have to tell the courts “fuck you” and that it was legally permissible to deplane the AEA detainees despite Boasberg’s order.

Story updated with the key exchange between Judge Nachmanoff and prosecutor

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Questions about the nuts and bolts of the indictment paperwork that have bedeviled the case from the beginning came into much sharper focus after persistent questioning from U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff in federal court Wednesday in Alexandria, VA.
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It’s not clear what makes James’ attorney suspect that the gap represents the IG’s documents, but they are requesting a court order for Halligan to provide them with a specific set of documents that have a common Bates stamp signature.

Before he was ousted, Allen turned over to U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s office some of what he had unearthed that, according to news reports, he felt legally obligated to provide, suggesting it may have been exculpatory evidence favorable to James.

Allen and about a dozen officials within Fannie Mae’s ethics and internal investigations unit were fired after looking into complaints about FHFA director Bill Pulte’s access to the personal mortgage records of prominent Democrats, including James.

Intriguingly, James’ attorneys say the discovery they’ve already received from the government contains a gap in the Bates-stamp sequence that suggests “over 100 pages of discovery likely turned over by the former FHFA Acting Inspector General has not been produced.”

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The Trump DOJ certainly won’t prosecute anyone for defying Congress. It’s not clear that the GOP-controlled Congress itself could enforce its demand, either legally or politically. Practically, there’s no real way for Congress to know if the Trump administration buries damaging documents or files.

Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) is defending the White House using similar language: “the Department of Justice has turned over what they’re legally allowed to turn over."

In the short term, no enforcing mechanism exists that would incentivize the admin to abide by Congress’ demand.

That language was echoed by an unnamed White House official: “This idea that the federal government is in possession of documents that they can legally hand over with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, and we’re keeping them from the public is a fallacy, like, it’s not true.”

“Legally entitled to” is doing a lot of work there.

The Trump White House and his DOJ will make that determination and can use it to throw a broad protective blanket over any evidence damaging to Trump.

Fitzpatrick, the magistrate judge, ordered prosecutors to turn over grand jury materials and recordings to Comey this afternoon. The Justice Department just filed an emergency motion to stay that order so that it can appeal the decision to the district court judge who is overseeing the case.

The other stunning revelation — though it started to become apparent on Friday — is that Halligan's own description of how she handled the grand jury and the paperwork of the indictment is now a separate basis for allowing Comey access to grand jury materials.

The improper statements to the grand jury constituted just one of *11* independent reasons that the judge found for ordering the government to provide the grand jury materials to Comey.