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"If they can do this sort of thing to Abrego Garcia, to 238 people that nobody knows, and send them to CECOT forever with no due process, they can do that to anyone," Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department lawyer who has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Senate Judiciary Committee told The New York Times. "It should be deeply, deeply worrisome to anyone who cares about their safety and their liberty, that the government can, without showing evidence to anyone of anything, spirit you away on a plane to wherever, forever."

Reuveni was a respected career prosecutor. He spent the first Trump administration defending Trump's immigration policies. But this time, he insists, is different. This time, Justice Department lawyers are being told to mislead the courts, and ignore them.

"The Department of Justice is thumbing its nose at the courts, and putting Justice Department attorneys in an impossible position where they have to choose between loyalty to the agenda of the president and their duty to the court," Reuveni added.

In his whistleblower complaint, Reuveni describes how the administration invoked a rarely used federal law to send immigrants to the notorious Salvadoran prison, even as Emil Bove, formerly Trump's personal lawyer and now a senior Justice Department official and nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals, told subordinates, including Reuveni, that the Justice Department may end up ignoring court orders, using an expletive to make his point.

Of course, the administration denies everything. But as The New York Times carefully puts it: "text messages, phone records and emails viewed by The Times appear to bolster the whistle-blower's version of events, offering a behind-the-scenes recounting of private meetings and conversations that show Justice Department leaders pressing to take audacious legal risks."

Audacious legal risks? Also known as lying to the courts, misleading and misinforming them, which Reuveni was fired for refusing to do.

In his complaint and in the interview with The Times, Reuveni detailed how another Justice Department lawyer misled a federal judge on March 15, when the administration sent several planes of migrants to El Salvador. The lawyer said that he did not know whether such removals were imminent. A colleague listening to the hearing texted Reuveni an expletive, followed by: "That was just not true. ... He knows there are plans for AEA removals within the next 24 hours."

Reuveni replied, "Yes he does."

Later that evening, Reuveni sent another text that referred to Bove's expletive: "Guess we are going to say f--- you to the court. Super."

His colleague responded, "Well, Pamela Jo Bondi is," then added, "not you."

Records Reuveni gave to Congress show State Department officials offered to negotiate with the Salvadoran government in order to get Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security rejected these efforts, insisting that he was a dangerous gang member who could not be returned. As the Times reports, "Career lawyers at the Justice Department struggled to carry out ambiguous instructions from their superiors in apparent contradiction of judicial orders."

Democrats now argue Bove is unfit to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The jury is still out on this one. Does it mean if he's not qualified for the bench, he goes back to telling Justice Department lawyers to defy the courts? This is not business as usual. The Justice Department is rotten. And the fish rots from the head.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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