In the unusual move, Bove argued that prosecutors would appeal the ruling to a district court judge, these people said. After considering the request, Judge John G. Kertle of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has directed the Chief Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn to review the application, people said.
But the second time, the government's lawyers got even worse. Not only did Judge Netburn refused to request a search warrant, he also ordered the government to adhere to special conditions. These people said that if prosecutors tried to amend such applications before other federal judges, they had to include a transcript of the sealed argument in her court.
These people said part of the judge's skepticism stems from his absence from the case of a lawyer with the U.S. Manhattan Office. But prosecutors in the Southern District of New York were wary of signing the effort, and involvement in it was minimal, these people said. A spokesman for the U.S. Lawyer's Office in Manhattan declined to comment.
Civil rights prosecutors conducted the investigations that Bove requested, and although they often opposed the specific measures he wanted to take, these people argued that they were not justified by available facts, or against law and past practices, or both.
At one point, Bove instructed FBI agents of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York to go to the Columbia campus, wearing raid jackets, and stand in a phalanx near the protesters. Within the Civil Rights Division, the instructions were viewed as deeply inappropriate and blatant attempts to intimidate students, these people said. The FBI agents did not demonstrate such power.
By early April, the investigation appeared to have largely died, but nothing would prevent Bove and others from reviving it. But as a result, those familiar with the case said it only exacerbated political appointers and mistrust between political appointers at Washington's Department of Justice headquarters and the New York prosecutor's office and veterans at the Civil Rights Office.
