‘Outright Lying’: The Judge Who Slammed Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino
The media owes Americans a true picture of his credibility.
Over the past several days, as millions of people have been processing the horror of a federal agent killing ICU nurse Alex Pretti, another name has also been all over the news: Greg Bovino. The commander at large of Customs and Border Patrol has been making claims that clearly conflict with videos of the shooting.
As the uproar over the shooting by a Border Patrol agent grows, President Donald Trump seems to be feeling the heat. He announced that he dispatched “border czar” Tom Homan to Minneapolis. Apparently, Homan will effectively take the reins from Bovino. The Atlantic reported that Bovino “has been removed from his role as Border Patrol ‘commander at large.’” But the Trump administration said that’s not true.
Through all this, there’s been something big missing in the coverage: Both Bovino and Homan have track records of not telling the truth.
When news agencies interview or quote someone, they should point out any giant, gaping holes in the person’s credibility. The refusal to do so is a perennial problem. It’s one of the failures I dig into on They Stand Corrected, my podcast and newsletter fact checking the media.
Bovino is a powerful case study.
After Pretti was killed, Bovino spoke at what was billed as a “news conference.” At only six minutes long, it wasn’t much of one. Following that, he has been quoted repeatedly by big legacy media. Most didn’t bother to mention that a federal judge previously excoriated Bovino for lying about what he and other federal agents did to protesters.
In November, Judge Sara L. Ellis of the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division issued an Opinion and Order in a case involving protests in the Chicagoland area. It’s 233 pages long and packed with descriptions of agents attacking protesters. Bovino’s name appears 119 times.
“The Court specifically finds his testimony not credible,” Ellis wrote. “Bovino appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing ‘cute’ responses to Plaintiffs’ counsel’s questions or outright lying.” He was shown a video in which “he obviously tackles Scott Blackburn, one of Plaintiffs’ declarants…. But instead of admitting to using force against Blackburn, Bovino denied it and instead stated that force was used against him.”
“Most tellingly,” Ellis added, “Bovino admitted in his deposition that he lied multiple times about the events that occurred in Little Village that prompted him to throw tear gas at protesters.”
Bovino had claimed a rock hit him in the helmet before he threw tear gas. But under oath, he “admitted that he was not hit with a rock until after he had deployed tear gas.” He then tried to claim that a rock “almost hit” him, but video evidence conflicted with that as well. Still, he insisted it happened—until the third day of his deposition, when he “admitted that he was again ‘mistaken’ and that no rock was thrown at him before he deployed the first tear gas canister,” Ellis wrote.
Lying shamelessly is standard fare for Trump officials, and probably even a prerequisite for a high-ranking position in the administration. But that doesn’t let the media off the hook. They should bring this up when quoting or interviewing Bovino.
CNN didn’t mention it during a 20-minute interview with him the day after the shooting. The segment makes for political theater, with Bovino repeatedly refusing to acknowledge how videos disprove the government line about what happened. But at the end of it, viewers haven’t gotten any new information. (To its credit, a local station did point out Bovino’s history. Props to Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul and all the hard working local media that outdo the news giants.)
This isn’t complicated. The media should point to the judge’s findings and ask him to explain why anyone should believe him.
If Ellis had written these things about a Biden or Obama official, right-wing media would be telling their audiences about it for months. But none of this should be partisan. All Americans should care about constitutional rights being protected—and, for that matter, rights cited in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Homan, meanwhile, pushes nonsensical claims about immigrants and fentanyl, sex trafficking, and more, as I’ve reported. (In the Media Fail Awards, some people voted for uncorrected immigration lies as one of the biggest news disasters of 2025.)
There’s another reason the media should reference Ellis’s order. She was assigned to another case, one that could place her on the national stage for a long time to come. From the Chicago Sun-Times this month: “The federal judge who restricted immigration agents’ use of tear gas and called out U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino for lying under oath will preside over the new lawsuit filed by Illinois and Chicago accusing the Trump administration of an illegal ‘occupation’ of the city.”
Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, the podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.
Thanks for running my latest column, The Contrarian. And even all this is only *part* of the context the media has left out. More over here: https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/
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Excellent and very important piece. I've also long found it frustrating that real journalists working for real news organizations fail to call out the well documented history of lying and and remind readers/listeners of known conflicts with the facts.