The U.S. Senate on July 29 confirmed Emil Bove, the former personal lawyer of President Donald Trump, to a role on a federal appellate court.
In a 50–49 vote with only Republicans in support, Bove was confirmed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), opposed the confirmation.
Bove previously served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, and came under the national spotlight for his role in Trump’s trial on charges related to hush money payments made by the Trump campaign in 2016. Bove was also on Trump’s legal team for his federal criminal cases.
The Third Circuit, where he will serve, hears cases from Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Democrats were vociferously opposed to Bove’s confirmation, citing his role in securing the dismissal of the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during a recent floor speech on the nominee that Bove is “as far from the mainstream as any judicial nominee we have considered in this chamber.”
“He is openly hostile to the rule of law. He is fundamentally opposed to democratic norms. He lacks the temperament to serve as a jurist,” Schumer said. “And above all, Mr. Bove is religiously obedient to Donald Trump.”
Democrats have also criticized Bove’s handling at the Department of Justice (DOJ) of agents and prosecutors in cases related to defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, including the firing of several prosecutors.
At a confirmation hearing in June, Bove acknowledged that some of his decisions “have generated controversy.”
He said further in his opening statement, “I’m here today to address some of your questions about those decisions, but I want to be clear about one thing up front: There is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media.”
Whistleblower claims against Bove have also accused him of encouraging the Trump administration to ignore judicial orders.
Specifically, that allegation comes from attorney Erez Reuveni, a former DOJ attorney who was fired after he conceded in court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was living in Maryland, had been mistakenly deported to a prison in his native El Salvador.
In a filing from his attorneys, Reuveni claims that, during a March meeting regarding Trump’s plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Tren de Aragua gang, Bove mentioned the possibility that courts could block the deportations before they could take place. Reuveni said that Bove then said that the DOJ should tell the courts what to do and “ignore any such order” from courts.
Bove said at his hearing he has “no recollection of saying anything of that kind.”
Murkowski cited these reports as her reason for opposing the nominee.
“I don’t think that somebody who has counseled other attorneys that you should ignore the law, you should reject the law, I don’t think that that individual should be placed in a lifetime seat on the bench,” Murkowski said on July 29.
Other Republicans, meanwhile, have described the treatment of Bove as “unfair.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said on July 29 that he thinks that Bove will be a “diligent, capable, and fair jurist.”
He said his office had faced stonewalling in trying to get materials related to the accusations from whistleblowers’ counsel.
The “vicious rhetoric, unfair accusations, and abuse directed at Mr. Bove” have “crossed the line,” Grassley said.
