Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol field leader, made disparaging remarks in reference to the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, an Orthodox Jew, people with knowledge of the phone call said.
A day before six career federal prosecutors resigned in protest over the Justice Department’s handling of the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, lawyers in the office had a conversation with Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol field leader, that left them deeply unsettled.
According to several people with knowledge of the telephone conversation, which took place on Jan. 12, Mr. Bovino made derisive remarks about the faith of the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Daniel N. Rosen. Mr. Rosen is an Orthodox Jew and observes Shabbat, a period of rest between Friday and Saturday nights that often includes refraining from using electronic devices.
Mr. Bovino, who has been the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, used the term “chosen people” in a mocking way, according to the people with knowledge of the call. He also asked, sarcastically, whether Mr. Rosen understood that Orthodox Jewish criminals don’t take weekends off, the people said.
Mr. Bovino had requested the meeting with Mr. Rosen to press the Minnesota office to work more aggressively to seek criminal charges against people Mr. Bovino believed were unlawfully impeding the work of his immigration agents.
Mr. Rosen delegated the call to a deputy. During the call, with a handful of prosecutors listening in, Mr. Bovino complained that Mr. Rosen had been unreachable for portions of the weekend because of Shabbat. Mr. Bovino’s remarks followed his complaints about having difficulty reaching Mr. Rosen.
Mr. Bovino’s comments raised judgment concerns, but also a potential legal dilemma for government lawyers. Based on a 1972 Supreme Court decision in a case known as Giglio, prosecutors have an obligation to disclose certain information to the defense that could call into question the integrity and character of a law enforcement officer who is involved in an arrest and called as a witness in a trial.
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Mr. Bovino did not respond to requests for comment.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Border Patrol, did not respond directly to questions about Mr. Bovino’s comments. “Instead of focusing on gossip, why don’t you focus on something actually important like the victims of illegal alien crime or the criminals taken out of Minneapolis communities?” she said.
A representative for the Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Rosen declined to comment for this article.
Mr. Rosen, a commercial litigator, has kept a relatively low profile since he became the U.S. attorney in Minnesota last October.
In an interview that month with an online news outlet, Jewish Insider, Mr. Rosen said that one of his “primary motivations” for seeking his current role was the power it gave him to combat what he called the “rapid escalation of violent antisemitism” in the United States.
“Jewish history tells us that Jews fare poorly in societies that turn polarized, and where that polarization evolves into factional hatreds in the non-Jewish societies within which we live,” he told the outlet.
Mr. Bovino, a Border Patrol commander based in Southern California, became among the most visible figures in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in cities starting last summer
