A top Justice Department official nominated to become a federal appeals court judge said Wednesday that he never told department attorneys to ignore court orders, denying the account of a whistleblower who detailed a campaign to defy judges to carry out President Donald Trump’s deportation plans.

Emil Bove’s nomination for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has come under intense scrutiny after a fired department lawyer claimed in a complaint filed Tuesday that Bove used an expletive when he said during a meeting that the Trump administration might need to ignore judicial commands. Bove pushed back against suggestions from Democrats that the whistleblower’s claims make him unfit for the federal bench.

“I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove told the Senate Judiciary Committee. He added: “I don’t think there’s any validity to the suggestion that that whistleblower complaint filed yesterday calls into question my qualifications to serve as a circuit judge.”