Emil Bove, US President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, moved a step closer Thursday to becoming a federal appellate judge, after a fiery Senate committee meeting that featured a walkout by Democrats.
The Republican-majority Senate Judiciary Committee voted along partisan lines to advance the nomination of the controversial Bove for consideration by the full Senate.
Bove, 44, has been nominated by Trump to a lifetime appointment on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers the states of Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
A former federal prosecutor and currently the third-ranking official in the Justice Department, Bove has faced fierce criticism for his role in the Trump administration’s divisive six months in power. “Mr. Bove has led the effort to weaponize the Department of Justice against the president’s enemies,” Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said at Bove’s confirmation hearing.
“Having earned his stripes as a loyalist to this president, he’s been rewarded with this lifetime nomination,” Durbin said.
More than 900 former Justice Department attorneys sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week expressing concern over Bove’s nomination.
“It is intolerable to us that anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land,” they said.
A group of more than 75 retired state and federal judges also wrote the committee, saying it is “deeply inappropriate for a president to nominate their own criminal defense attorney for a federal judgeship.”
“Especially,” they said, “when that president has said he is nominating judges based on whether they will be more loyal to him than to the country.”
Whistleblower complaint
Bove represented Trump in the New York case that ended in his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.
He also defended Trump in two federal criminal cases which never reached trial and were shut down after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
Earlier this year, Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop bribery and fraud charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
The move triggered a wave of resignations in the Manhattan US attorney’s office and at the Justice Department in Washington.
Bove has denied allegations that the decision was a “quid pro quo” in exchange for the Democratic mayor’s support for Trump’s immigration crackdown.
A Justice Department whistleblower also recently claimed that Bove had told subordinates that he would be willing to ignore court orders to enforce Trump’s plans to deport undocumented migrants.
Bove denies the allegation.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sought on Thursday to delay the confirmation vote on Bove to allow for the whistleblower to testify, but the Republican committee chairman refused the request.
Democrats then walked out of the meeting in protest while Republicans proceeded to vote unanimously to send Bove’s nomination to the full Senate.
Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the chamber.
By Agencies
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