Emil Bove Confirmed to Lifetime Judgeship
Trump's personal lawyer, and man accused of telling DOJ lawyers to ignore court orders is now a federal judge.
I will confess to being disappointed (indeed, disgusted), but not surprised by the news that Emil Bove has been confirmed by the US Senate to sit on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. So reports NBC News: Republicans confirm former Trump lawyer Emil Bove to lifetime appeals court perch.
He was confirmed 50-49, with only Republican votes, as they set aside allegations from three whistleblowers about the conduct of Bove, a Justice Department official, which include accusations that he flouted laws and Justice Department procedures.
Just two Republicans voted with Democrats against the nomination: Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Susan Collins, of Maine.
For those who may not recall who Bove is, this headline from Reason may jog memories: Judicial Nominee Emil Bove Can’t Recall Whether He Said the DOJ Might Say ‘Fuck You’ To Court Orders.
It’s not often that the word fuck comes up at a Senate confirmation hearing. But Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) said it six times during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s June 25 hearing on President Donald Trump’s nomination of Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
Schiff was not using that expletive to express his dismay at Bove’s nomination, which the Republican-controlled committee voted to advance on Thursday despite credible concerns about Bove’s respect for the rule of law. Rather, Schiff was quoting Justice Department whistleblower Erez Reuveni, who alleges that Bove, during a March 14 meeting about Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to summarily deport alleged gang members, “made a remark concerning the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated.” According to Reuveni, Bove “stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignor[ing] any such court order.”
That account goes to the heart of the objections raised by critics of Bove’s nomination, who include conservatives as well as progressives. Ed Whelan, former president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has expressed “serious doubts that Bove has the character and integrity to be worthy of confirmation as a federal judge.” The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board worries about Bove’s “reputation…as a smashmouth partisan who wields the law as a weapon.” New York Times columnist David French warns that Bove’s nomination reflects Trump’s preference for “judges who will do whatever it takes to curry favor with a president who values fealty above all.”
Reuveni’s account, which is backed up by contemporaneous internal communications, powerfully reinforces those concerns about Bove. When Bove suggested that the Justice Department could simply ignore any court orders against the AEA removals, Reuveni says, “others in the room looked stunned,” there were “awkward, nervous glances,” and “silence overtook the room.” But “notwithstanding Bove’s directive,” Reuveni “left the meeting understanding that [the Justice Department] would tell [the Department of Homeland Security] to follow all court orders.”
That understanding proved to be mistaken. The next day, the Trump administration began sending alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite an injunction issued that day by James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Boasberg later concluded that the evidence “strongly support[s]” the conclusion that the government’s lawyers “willfully disobeyed” his order.
That conduct was consistent with another message that Reuveni says Bove delivered during that March 14 meeting. According to Reuveni, Bove “stressed to all in attendance that the planes [transporting AEA detainees] needed to take off no matter what.”
Bove’s memory is apparently not great.
When Schiff asked Bove about those alleged remarks, the nominee was notably evasive. “I have no recollection of saying anything of that kind,” Bove said, referring to the “fuck you” quote. “I’ve certainly said things encouraging litigators at the department to fight hard for valid positions that we have to take in defense of our clients….I did not suggest that there would be any need to consider ignoring court orders. At the point of that meeting, there were no court orders to discuss.”
Schiff pressed Bove: “Did you suggest telling the courts ‘fuck you’ in any manner?” Bove did not deny it. “I don’t recall,” he said.
This sounds, quite frankly, like the kind of non-answer a person under oath gives when they don’t actually want to tell the whole truth.
The entire Reason piece is worth a read.
If you haven’t listened to Erez Reuveni’s interview on The Daily from last week, I highly recommend it.
Back to the NBC News write-up of Bove’s confirmation.
An initial Justice Department whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, told Congress via his lawyers that Bove told subordinates that they might have to ignore court orders blocking Trump’s deportation efforts, comments that concerned Reuveni. It allegedly occurred the day before the administration carried out deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
That allegation, which a second whistleblower echoed, relayed a meeting on March 14 at which Bove warned that planned deportations could be blocked by a court order, with Reuveni’s attorneys writing in the disclosure that “Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘f— you’ and ignore any such court order.”
[…]
A third whistleblower, who approached senators with a separate allegation against Bove more recently, had provided evidence suggesting Bove misled senators during his confirmation hearing in discussing his handling of the Justice Department’s dismissal of the case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
The specific details of how Bove is alleged to have misled senators have not been publicly disclosed, and the connection to Adams’ case was first reported by The Washington Post.
Grassley’s staff met with attorneys for the third whistleblower, but Grassley said the allegations would not delay Bove’s confirmation vote.
It is also worth remembering that Bove was central in the pressuring of NY Mayor Eric Adams.
All of this strikes me as enough to keep a person off the bench. It isn’t like there aren’t a large number of possible alternatives. But clearly, the Republican Senate sees its job as far more rubber-stamp than advise-and-consent.
It certainly wouldn’t want to stop Trump from putting a crony on the bench!
See also Ben Wittes’ Lawfare piece from last month: The Situation: The Talented Mr. Bove.
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Nothing surprises anymore.
The GOP is diseased. There is no fixing it.
@Hal 10000:
No, they are compromised.
On the plus side this gets Bove out of the Justice Department. A further plus, as an appellate judge he will work in 3 judge panels. He’d do more harm as a district court judge. Still, it is nauseating to see a man of such low character elevated to a judgeship. Trump isn’t just embarrassing himself and the country every time he opens his mouth, he is doing immense harm to our institutions by appointing partisan buffoons to important positions.
@Charley in Cleveland: Your point about DoJ and working in a panel is something (although not much).
I would commend Wittes’ piece on the “partisan buffoon” issue, as Bove isn’t especially ideological and he isn’t a buffoon. Worse, he is just a power-hungry hack who is loyal to Trump. He is more a mob type than a Federalist Society type.
We live in the kind of world where an 8.8 quake, the sixth strongest ever recorded, is not the biggest shock that day, nor the one that will cause the longest lasting harm.
@Rick DeMent:
Which expresses as being diseased.
@Steven L. Taylor:
This. Explains so much.
Just spit ballin’ here, but clearly “this isn’t Kansas anymore,” and Trump has taken America “through the looking glass” smashing all known norms, mores, boundaries of governance [insert additional metaphors here], BUT since apparently now nothing is set in stone anymore, it seems that if/when the MAGA lock on power is surmounted, there now exists the precedence to break more rules and remediate some of these dastardly deeds. Maybe even deport the two Steves, Bannon and Miller, to El Salvador. Or better yet, Antarctica.
There’s something here I still don’t quite get. There seems to be a sense of urgency underlying a lot of what is going on. Why not get some more work out of Bove? Why push this now? They have at least another year to get him confirmed.
Why did they feel they had to move the BBB passage up a month? I can speculate with the best of y’all, but it’s just speculation.
@Jay L. Gischer:
I think it is as easy as Trump wanting to sign it on July 4th.
In general, Trump is a creature of appetites who wants the donut or burger now, not later.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Yup. With El Taco it’s always about money and appearances, and not always money.
@Jay L. Gischer:
To give him at least a year (possibly three years) as an appellate judge until he may be needed as candidate loyalist to replace Clarence Thomas.
@Rob1: I generally agree with you. There will be opportunities for us. I think that while we will want to do some housecleaning, what we most want to focus on is the future – what we want things to look like.
A bunch of the things that are broken have ecological niches, which are now empty. They will be filled, the question is how.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Dead on. Upvote this 100x
@Steven L. Taylor: Point well taken. Partisan Buffoon #1 is obviously Pete Hegseth, with Linda McMahon and Kristi Noem fighting to be #2. Labeling Bove a Power Hungry hack puts him in league with JD Vance and Marco Rubio….guys who are not stupid, but who are willing to sell their souls.