A Trump lawyer's uphill climb to the federal bench

Politico

6 hours ago

BOVE AND THE WHISTLEBLOWER — The prospects for Emil Bove's nomination to serve as a federal judge were already uncertain. But today, one day before the confirmation hearing for Trump's former criminal defense lawyer-turned-senior Justice Department official, things may have gotten worse.
Attorneys for Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department lawyer who was fired from the department after acknowledging in court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been sent to El Salvador in error, released a scathing whistleblower disclosure alleging that Bove and other senior Trump DOJ officials sought to defy court orders in three separate cases 'through lack of candor, deliberate delay, and disinformation.'
The disclosure heightens the tensions around an already controversial nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The Trump DOJ has already pushed back vigorously. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche —who worked with Bove on behalf of Trump last year in the president's criminal trial in Manhattan — described Reuveni's claims in a social media post as 'utterly false.'
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York who overlapped with Bove, initially held out hope that Bove would take on the DOJ job while adhering to the standards of bipartisanship and professionalism that prevailed in the office. But given developments in recent months, and particularly in the wake of Reuveni's disclosure today, Goldman's assessment of his former colleague is now sharply negative.
'In just a few short months,' Goldman said today, Bove 'has single-handedly done tremendous damage to the Department of Justice' and 'repeatedly demonstrated that his oath of office and the rule of law are subservient to his personal and political desires. That record disqualifies him from serving as a lifetime judge responsible for objectively interpreting the law.'
Among other things, Reuveni alleges that Bove told a group of lawyers in mid-March, shortly before Trump publicly invoked the Alien Enemies Act as part of his mass deportation effort, that they would need to be prepared for a court order that might quickly put a stop to the removals.
'Bove then made a remark concerning the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated,' Reuveni's lawyers wrote. 'Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts 'fuck you' and ignore any such court order.'
'Mr. Reuveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned,' the account continues, 'and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in the room. Silence overtook the room.'
Reuveni also alleges that Bove told officials in the Department of Homeland Security that they could violate an oral court order — one that directed the return of flights to El Salvador as part of the AEA deportations — because the order had not yet been issued in writing. The presiding judge has since concluded that there is probable cause to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt as a result of that decision.
Reuveni's submission provides a remarkable account from within Trump's second-term Justice Department — one that, in an earlier era, might have prompted bipartisan calls for an independent investigation. The account sharply criticizes not just Bove but several other senior administration lawyers who have been handling the litigation over Trump's deportation effort.
Bove had already come under sharp criticism from many legal observers over his dismissal of the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The presiding judge described the DOJ's arguments as 'unsupported by any objective evidence,' 'pretextual' and 'unsubstantiated.'
In white-collar legal circles, however, a second — and subtler — criticism of Bove's handling of the case has also been making the rounds in recent months.
In particular, some experienced lawyers believe that Bove probably could have achieved his and Trump's objective of dismissing the case without creating a weeks-long public spectacle. The argument, essentially, is that Bove made a bad situation much worse by bungling both the internal and external communications around the decision, and that the episode reflected poor political and managerial instincts on top of bad legal judgment.
Senate Democrats oppose Bove's nomination, but it has also opened up a fissure within the conservative legal movement. On one side are establishment Federalist Society types, who oppose Bove's nomination to serve as a judge because they believe he is being picked largely — if not entirely — because Trump views him as a diehard loyalist.
On the other side are Republicans who are stridently backing Bove. They include Andrew Ferguson, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, who recently co-authored an op-ed in support of Bove.
Bove's appearance before the Judiciary Committee tomorrow was already one worth keeping an eye on. Republicans have a narrow margin to get Bove through, and he will now also have to respond to a blistering account that threatens to derail his nomination.
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What'd I Miss?
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Russia has increased the frequency of its attacks on Ukraine since May when it launched a summer offensive in the conflict, now in its fourth year. It has also ramped up its production of drones: In June alone Moscow launched 2,736 Shahed kamikaze drones at Ukraine, the country's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address to the parliament of the Netherlands today. In addition, the Kremlin continues to launch dozens of missiles at Ukraine.
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