Messy Details Emerge About Trump Border Boss’s Sudden Exit

Newly released emails reveal that former Border Patrol bruiser Gregory Bovino was under internal investigation by Customs and Border Protection at the time of his retirement.

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Bovino, 56, was contacted by an internal government watchdog for an “official Inquiry into allegations of misconduct” in early March, two weeks before he announced his retirement, according to released by CBP last week.

The former Border Patrol “commander-at-large” emailed an agency official 16 days later on March 18 that he was planning to retire and relocate. He officially retired from CBP at the end of that month.

The alleged misconduct under investigation involved Bovino’s testimony in federal court last year, in which he was accused of lying by a federal judge, as well as antisemitic comments he allegedly made about Minnesota federal prosecutor Daniel N. Rosen during a phone call.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said in November that Bovino repeatedly lied to the court over his anti-immigrant sweep in Chicago. She then imposed a preliminary injunction limiting federal officers’ use of tear gas and other riot-control weapons against nonviolent protesters, as well as requiring agents to wear body cameras.

Bovino told the Chicago Tribune that he was placed under investigation “to CAUSE me to retire” and that the two investigations were “drummed up after I left Minnesota.”

The former border bully told the outlet that he learned of the allegation through The New York Times, which broke news of the investigation into his alleged antisemitic comments on March 3.

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Bovino was accused of using the term “chosen people” in voicing his frustrations with Rosen, an Orthodox Jew, as well as sarcastically asking whether Orthodox Jewish criminals “also take off Saturday.”

“Unprecedented to have the media know you are under investigation when you don’t,” he told the Tribune. “Hired a lawyer who said it was a political hit job.”

He also told CBS News that CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott targeted him specifically because he was “a political rival.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to CBP for comment.

Bovino, who led the Trump administration’s disastrous immigration crackdowns in Chicago and Minneapolis, said last week in an interview with Tucker Carlson that the federal government wants him “dead.”

“Do I think they want me dead at this point? Yes,” he told Carlson.

He continued: “I’m in a running battle every time I go out. I mean, every time the citizens of my own community are like, ‘What is going on with you?’ These people come up. There’s some crazies out there. You know, you know this, Tucker, and you bet. Do I think they want me killed? Absolutely.”

Bovino was relieved of his command of “Operation Metro Surge” in late January and replaced by Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, in the wake of backlash over federal agents fatally shooting two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.