Trump's appeals court nominee responds to allegation he suggested DOJ say ‘f— you' to courts: ‘I'm not anybody's henchman'
Justice Department official Emil Bove pushed back Wednesday against claims that he's President Trump's 'henchman' or 'enforcer' during a contentious Senate hearing on his nomination to serve a lifetime appointment on a federal appeals court.
Bove, who served as Trump's personal lawyer during his criminal cases last year, has faced criticism from Democrats over his role in the dismissal of federal prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases; request for corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams to be dropped; and allegations from a whistleblower that he suggested administration officials should defy court orders.
'I respect this process, and 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,' Bove said in his testimony.
Advertisement
'I am not anybody's henchman. I'm not an enforcer. I'm a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this,' the senior DOJ official added.
3 Bove was nominated by Trump to serve as a judge on the third circuit appeals court earlier this year.
Getty Images
One day before Bove's confirmation hearing for the judicial post on the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees district courts in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, fired former DOJ official Erez Reuveni alleged that the nominee told federal prosecutors that the Trump administration may not abide by court orders that would impede its mass deportation plans.
Advertisement
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) brought up the whistleblower complaint during his questioning, and repeatedly used the expletive Reuveni claims Bove used during a March 14 meeting discussing Trump's yet-to-be signed proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
'In the complaint, it says, 'Bove stated the DOJ would need to consider telling the courts, f— you and ignoring any such court order.' Did you say anything of that kind in the meeting?' Schiff asked the judicial nominee.
Bove responded: 'Senator, I have no recollection of saying anything of that kind.'
'Wouldn't you recall, Mr. Bove, if you said or suggested during a meeting with Justice Department lawyers that maybe they should consider telling the court 'f— you'? It seems to me that would be something you'd remember … Unless that's the kind of thing you say frequently,' Schiff pressed.
Advertisement
'Well, 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,' Bove shot back.
3 Bove served as Trump's defense team during his criminal cases last year.
Getty Images
3 A whistleblower has accused Bove of informing DOJ officials that they may have to defy court orders regarding the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants.
via REUTERS
'Have you frequently suggested that they say, 'f— you' and ignore court orders? Is that also something you frequently do so that you might not remember doing it on this occasion?' the senator continued.
Advertisement
Bove asserted that he 'did not suggest that there would be any need to consider, ignoring court orders,' noting that during the meeting Reuveni describes in his complaint, 'There were no court orders to discuss.'
'Well, did you suggest telling the courts 'f— you' in any manner?' Schiff responded.
Bove answered: 'I don't recall.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
20 minutes ago
- The Hill
The Memo: Trump fights to hold on to narrative of Iran win
President Trump is punching back at critics and doubters as he tries to bolster his claim that the U.S. bombing of Iran was a full success, strategically and politically. Trump and his allies have reacted furiously to media reports about an early assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which contended that Iran's nuclear program had likely been set back by only a few months by the U.S. bombing. This assessment is a far cry from the claims made by Trump and by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump said the campaign had left Iran's nuclear facilities 'fully obliterated.' The Israeli prime minister has said the Iranian program was 'brought to ruin.' The issue is important to Trump for domestic political reasons as well as on the global stage. He had been under an unusual amount of pressure because of the crosscurrents within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) coalition on the issue of U.S. forces getting directly involved in the assault on Iran. Figures like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have argued vociferously that Trump has risked getting the U.S. sucked into yet another war in the Middle East — even as more hawkish Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) contend that maximalist American support for Israel could transform the region. Those fights got so intense that a number of influential figures on the online right have been hurling insults at each other. The tensions have also led to highly unusual moments, like the usually hyperloyal Greene writing on social media that Trump is 'not a king' — even as she insisted there was no rupture in her support for the president. Earlier this week, Trump seemed to have threaded his way through this complicated landscape. The brief but significant U.S. strikes — in which B-2 warplanes dropped 14 massive bunker buster bombs on Iran — held out the potential of demolishing Iran's capacity to enrich uranium, while also foreclosing the possibility of American forces ending up in a prolonged conflict. The bombs were dropped on target, the damage was said to be total and the planes returned to their Missouri base without incident. To that extent, it was the antithesis of the disaster then-President Jimmy Carter suffered in 1980, when a bid to rescue American hostages in Iran ended ignominiously when helicopters failed in the Iranian desert and eight U.S. troops were killed. Trump's political victory appeared to be capped when he announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. He has taken to referring to the phase begun by Israeli strikes on Iran as the '12-Day War.' But if — a big 'if,' to be sure — the DIA assessment is correct, it has the capacity to change the narrative at a stroke. If the setback inflicted on the Iranians could be overcome within months, it would suddenly look as if Trump had taken a very large risk for an unsatisfyingly small reward. It would also open the door to questions about whether the U.S. would feel the need to carry out further sorties into Iranian territory. This may be one reason why Trump is so angry that the DIA's evaluation has been made public. In one social media post on Wednesday, he contended that the two news organizations that led on the story, The New York Times and CNN, had 'tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did.' Trump went on to complain about reporters and asserted, 'You would think they would be proud of the great success we had, instead of trying to always make our country look bad.' 'TOTAL OBLITERATION!' he concluded. Secretary of State Marco Rubio put considerable emphasis on what he said was the destruction of a 'conversion facility' in the city of Isfahan. Rubio contended this facility had been effectively erased — 'we can't even find where it is, where it used to be, on the map' — and that, without it, there was no way for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. The weak spot in this argument is that much of the attention before the U.S. raid was on a different Iranian facility in Fordow. It was the Fordow enrichment plant that, being built into a mountain, was supposed to require the use of bunker buster bombs in the first place. Now, some reports suggest Fordow may have had its entrances cut off by the bombing, but without the destruction of the facility itself. This, in turn, affects the whole rationale that undergirded the U.S. decision to get involved. Advocates of the bombing argued that punitive action would cause the Iranians to abandon any ambitions they have for a nuclear bomb, for good. But it's possible that the Iranians could draw precisely the opposite lesson: that Israel and the U.S. had felt emboldened to attack because Iran is not a nuclear power — unlike other American adversaries like North Korea and Russia, for example — and therefore it needs to develop nuclear weapons with maximum speed. Such a quest would be made easier if the core structure of some of its nuclear facilities have survived, if it was able to move enriched uranium to other locations before American bombs fell, or if it has secret facilities that have evaded international attention. It is of course possible that the DIA assessment is simply wrong. Trump allies point to an Israeli intelligence assessment that found more serious damage was done. In a social media post late on Wednesday afternoon, Trump promised an 'interesting and irrefutable' Pentagon news conference on Thursday morning, at which he said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and members of the military would speak. Roughly an hour prior to Trump's post, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released a statement saying the agency believed that Iran's nuclear program had been 'severely damaged.' A statement from such a staunch Trump ally won't quiet the doubters. But Trump will be eagerly hoping it's true. The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
The Hill
20 minutes ago
- The Hill
White House stablecoin push collides with efforts to tie crypto bills
The White House is pushing the House to quickly get stablecoin legislation across the finish line with limited changes, frustrating efforts to tie the bill to a larger crypto framework and limiting the lower chamber's ability to puts its stamp on the measure. After the Senate passed the GENIUS Act last week, President Trump called on the House to move 'lightning fast' and get a 'clean' bill to his desk without delay. 'Get it to my desk, ASAP — NO DELAYS, NO ADD ONS,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'This is American Brilliance at its best, and we are going to show the World how to WIN with Digital Assets like never before!' But the push to pass the stablecoin bill on its own cuts against efforts supported by some in the industry and Congress who worry that another key crypto bill — seeking to divvy up regulation of the broader crypto market — will lose momentum. 'From the House's perspective, there is a significant risk that if the House passes stablecoins without a market structure bill, the Senate will just not take up the market structure bill in a timely fashion or at all,' said Jennifer Schulp, director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. The GENIUS Act, which lays out a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, passed the Senate last week by a vote of 68-30, becoming the first major crypto legislation to clear the chamber. While it marked a significant milestone for the crypto industry, the stablecoin bill represents just one part of the equation. The second key priority for the Trump administration and GOP leadership has been legislation that would clearly split oversight of the digital asset market between two regulators — the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). They hope to pass both bills by August. Some House lawmakers have indicated they would like to tie market structure legislation, such as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that advanced out of the House Financial Services Committee earlier this month, to the stablecoin bill and pass them together. The House may hope to force the Senate's hand as the upper chamber moves more slowly on market structure legislation, noted Christopher Niebuhr, a senior research analyst with Beacon Policy Advisors. The Senate version of the market structure bill has yet to be introduced, although a group of senators released a set of 'principles' Tuesday to guide the development of the legislation. Notably, the upper chamber has appeared more on board with Trump's approach, with Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) urging the House to 'act quickly and send this bill' to the president's desk. 'President Trump is right — the time to lead is now,' Scott said in a statement last week. 'The GENIUS Act will establish clear guardrails for innovation, protect consumers, bolster national security, and ensure the next chapter of the digital economy is written right here in the United States.' Despite Trump's pretty 'unequivocal' statement on the GENIUS Act, House lawmakers have continued to talk about working the bills together, Schulp noted. Politico reported Wednesday that House leaders are considering voting on a package that combines the stablecoin and market structure bills next month, although they have yet to make a final decision. 'The White House's influence here is a little bit unclear,' Schulp said. 'I don't think anyone wants to intentionally upset the White House, but the House has been working on these issues for a long time and is invested in getting the whole package done, not simply finishing stablecoins.' When asked Monday whether he plans to tie the two bills together, House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) would not commit to any particular course of action. 'What I've been doing … was taking the temperature of our members in the House about what their preferred approaches are for hitting President Trump's deadline, including House leadership,' he said at a Brookings Institution event. 'So, that's just a discussion that continues.' However, it seems increasingly unlikely that the bills will reach Trump's desk as one. Niebuhr underscored the potential for the White House to get even more involved on crypto legislation going forward. 'The White House holds a lot of sway here,' Niebuhr said, adding, 'To the same degree that Trump is expected to weigh heavily on House lawmakers to get the reconciliation bill across the finish line in the next couple of days, it's certainly possible he throws his weight around or continues this drumbeat of pass the stablecoin bill before August.' Combining market structure and stablecoin legislation also threatens to push the timeline on both measures back to the fall, Niebuhr said. He noted the House could still potentially move the two bills without formally tying them together. 'Even as French Hill has hemmed and hawed a little bit about what exactly he'll do, he's said that he's committed to getting crypto legislation to the president's desk on his timeline, which is just ahead of August recess,' he added. House Agriculture Chair Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.), whose committee also advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act earlier this month, appeared more reconciled to the approach of splitting the two bills. 'I don't anticipate tying them together only because the Senate is behind on market structure,' he told The Hill on Tuesday. 'More than happy to send it to them. Would love them just to pass it.' Thompson added he wants a commitment from the Senate on market structure legislation. 'I'd like to see that get done to get President Trump a victory, a success, but at the same time, I insist on a commitment from the Senate that they will get moving on market structure because that's actually more important than stablecoin,' he said. 'It's important,' Thompson continued. 'But if you don't have a regulatory oversight regime, GENIUS isn't going to be helpful to anyone.' Schulp similarly emphasized that assurances from the Senate could be key to moving forward with stablecoin legislation on its own. 'I don't think there's a lot of interest in pushing off stablecoin regulation for months and months while market structure gets worked through, but I think the House is going to want some assurances, whatever those are worth, that if they move forward on stablecoin legislation, the Senate will take a crack at market structure legislation in a timely fashion,' she said. Even if the House takes up the GENIUS on its own, it may not be a done deal. Several lawmakers have indicated they hope to make some changes to the bill before it passes the lower chamber. 'The House version of the stablecoin legislation is not exactly the same as the GENIUS Act,' Schulp said, referring to the STABLE Act, which advanced out of the House Financial Services Committee in April. 'There at least until recently had been conversations, public statements from French Hill and I believe others that indicated that there might still be some work to be done to harmonize the two versions of the bills, rather than the House simply swallowing the Senate's version whole,' she added.
Los Angeles Times
21 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Heat domes, wildfires, floods and drought. Where's the outrage?
As I write this, the temperature is climbing past 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the mid-Atlantic states, and 170 million Americans are under warnings about a dangerous combination of intense heat and humidity. Is this latest weather extreme linked to global warming? Of course it is, as has been the case with record-setting floods, extreme hurricanes, droughts and wildfires that go back decades and afflict every corner of the globe. Amid these extremes, we have the Trump administration seemingly trying to roll back or reverse every environmental initiative of the past 55 years. Yet nobody seems to care. In the early 1990s, I gave a lot of talks about how environmental awareness had become an American value. The early 1970s saw the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within 20 years, Time magazine was making planet Earth its 'Man of the Year,' and the first Earth Summit met. But now I think I spoke too soon. On June 14, several million people took to the streets in the 'No Kings' protests against Trump's assault on the Constitution, demonstrating that Americans can still be mobilized in support of something they hold dear. By contrast, while there has been ample media coverage of the administration's gutting of the agencies monitoring climate change, pollution, the weather and other environment-related issues, the devastation hasn't produced any major protests. This is all the more striking as many of the looming environmental concerns that provoked action in the 20th century are unfolding faster and causing far worse damage than predicted. To take just one example, climate change is inflicting far higher costs on Americans at a far faster pace than experts predicted back when the public started clamoring for action on global warming. In 1991, for instance, economist William Nordhaus used a model he developed (work for which he became a Nobel laureate in 2018) to predict that 3 degrees Celsius warming would cause a mere 1% drop in global income. As recently as 2018, a refined version of his model predicted that the roughly 1.5-degree Celsius warming already happening would inflict only 0.5% damage to the economy. This number stands in dramatic contrast to a new analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence: In the 12 months ending May 1, 2025, damage from events attributable to climate change amounted to roughly 3% of U.S. GDP, or nearly $1 trillion. Contributing to this number were such catastrophes as Hurricanes Helene and Milton and wildfires in California. While skeptics might question how analysts can precisely measure how much of the damage caused by such events is attributable to climate change, one major tributary to this number is a dramatic increase in insurance costs, and insurers take estimating risk very seriously. Thirty years ago, the president of the Reinsurance Assn. of America told me 'global warming can bankrupt the industry.' But the industry, motivated by the competitive pressures to continue to write policies, and protected by its ingenuity at limiting exposure and offloading risk, underpriced these risks well into the 2000s. No longer. As Californians are well aware, many insurers have pulled out of markets vulnerable to fires, floods, sea level rise and storms, and those that remain have been raising prices where they can. The Bloomberg Intelligence analysis found that insurance premiums have doubled since 2017 (and may still underprice risk in many markets), and even those who are insured will find that many of their losses aren't covered, and that government recovery help falls short as well. Climate change is costing Americans real money — $7.7 trillion since 2000, according to the Bloomberg Intelligence analysis. To put this in perspective, it is substantially more than the total costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions taken together. And these costs are certain to rise as climate change intensifies. Given that the administration's actions are going to leave Americans more vulnerable to climate change at a time when weather-related events are already affecting the average voter's budget, it would be natural to expect protests at least as vigorous as those against deportations or cuts to Medicaid. Instead, in the relative absence of public interest, many large corporations have abandoned climate-related policies, something that began even before Trump was elected. Simple issue overload might explain some of the silence. It's understandably hard to process all the ramifications of what we might call the Trump Blitzkrieg — bizarre, unqualified Cabinet appointments, attacks on due process, attempts at mass deportations, sending troops into Los Angeles to quell garden-variety unrest, bombing Iran without congressional authorization. He has indeed flooded the zone. The familiarity of the problem may be another problem. The warming planet been the subject of innumerable debates, reports, global agreements, protests, lawsuits, political campaigns and media attention going back to 1988 when it became a mainstream issue. Indeed, a changed climate is the new normal for most people alive today because a majority of the global population was born after the signals of a climate going haywire became obvious. Finally, humans aren't great at assessing the relative priority of risks — encounters with deer kill 880 times more Americans each year than encounters with sharks, but guess which threat worries us more? Still, the essence of a value is that it becomes a cherished part of identity, and if environmental awareness really were an American value, commitment to that value would cut through the noise. It hasn't, and that bodes ill for our future. Eugene Linden is the author of 'Fire & Flood: A People's History of Climate Change From 1979 to the Present .'
