Emil Bove, Trump's former personal lawyer, faces renewed scrutiny for federal court seat
A top lawyer in the Department of Justice seeking a seat on the federal bench is facing allegations that he was a key player in pushing the Trump administration to ignore court orders and make sure deportation flights took off no matter what judges said.
The allegations, made by a Department of Justice whistleblower in a report obtained by USA TODAY, are now hanging over Bove's nomination by President Donald Trump to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which hears appeals from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The whistleblower, Ere Reuveni, was suspended from his job at the Department of Justice after he told a court that the Trump administration erred in deporting a Maryland man to El Salvador despite a court order to keep him in the United States. His complaint leaked the night before Bove's hearing.
He alleges that Bove told the Department of Homeland Security in March that it could violate a court's injunction because it had not been issued in writing; that he told people in a meeting that deportation flights needed to take off no matter what; and that he said the department would need to consider telling courts "f--- you" and ignore a court order.
"I don't understand how we are seriously considering someone for a lifetime appointment on the federal bench who has such disregard for court orders," Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, said during Bove's confirmation hearing Wednesday.
Bove was already a controversial appointment to the Department of Justice and the federal bench because he served as Trump's personal lawyer, most notably representing him in a business fraud case in New York City that resulted in 34 felony convictions.
Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, said Bove was "in a category all of his own." He accused Bove of weaponizing the Department of Justice against Trump's enemies and receiving the nomination as a reward. He also cited an allegedly abusive management style, and Bove's firing of dozens of career lawyers who prosecuted cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.
But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, vocally backed Bove's qualifications, and dismissed criticism as "an intense opposition campaign by my Democratic colleagues and by their media allies."
"Mr. Bove checks every box," Grassley said. "Academic distinction. Federal clerkships. Complex trial and appellate litigation. Senior justice department leadership. His experience isn't just sufficient; it is very exceptional."
Additionally, Republican attorneys general from 20 states, including Alabama, Florida, and Ohio, wrote in a letter that Bove's choice to represent Trump was a feather in his cap: "The courage to represent unpopular defendants under harsh scrutiny is precisely the type of character that the Senate should consider in judicial nominees."
Bove, a former federal prosecutor who was born in upstate New York, said he is being inaccurately described. He emphasized his early-career experience as a paralegal in the Department of Justice.
"There is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media," Bove said Wednesday. "I am not anybody's henchman. I am not anyone's enforcer. I am a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this."
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