President Donald Trump’s former defense attorney Emil Bove appears to be on a glide path to approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, his first formal hurdle in a bid to become a circuit court judge.
Republicans on the committee have raised no major objections with Bove’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, moving forward amid accusations that Bove participated in an effort intended to undermine court rulings against the administration over deportation efforts.
Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, on Tuesday turned down a request from Democrats to hear testimony from former Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni, who has alleged that Bove was part of a wide-ranging plan to potentially defy court orders on deportations.
“Mr. Reuveni has made credible allegations against Mr. Bove, which, if true, clearly disqualify him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench,” Senate Democrats said in a letter this week.
But Grassley, in a letter of his own, said it was unnecessary to have another hearing on Bove’s nomination and that the committee would be voting on Thursday.
Grassley said Democrats had previously rejected Republican requests for additional hearings on Biden nominees. Plus, the issues Democrats raised were already covered in depth at Bove’s confirmation hearing, he said.
“There is no doubt that members of this Committee have had a full and fair opportunity to address the issues you raise,” Grassley wrote to his fellow senators. “Following a comprehensive review of the additional documents that you published following the hearing and discussed in the media, I do not believe that they substantiate any misconduct by Mr. Bove.”
Bove, who was nominated to circuit court covering Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands, has been a top DOJ official since the start of Trump’s second term.
Prior to the start of the president’s term, Bove was defense counsel for Trump in multiple criminal cases, including the New York state prosecution in which Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts tied to falsified business records for hush money payments in his 2016 presidential campaign.
Since starting at the DOJ, Bove participated in the firings of prosecutors who worked on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and personally intervened in the effort to drop a federal corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
Last month Bove faced both a confirmation hearing and a whistleblower report from Reuveni, the former Justice Department attorney.
Reuveni laid out his allegations in a letter, which included recounting a March meeting where Bove discussed planned deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. Reuveni wrote that Bove “stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what” and that the DOJ “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you'” if ordered to stop deportations.
Bove denied ever having instructed Justice Department staff to ignore a court order, which was not an accusation included in Reuveni’s letter.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday that it was “very unfortunate and unwise” for the panel to move forward with Bove’s nomination. Blumenthal called Bove “supremely unqualified” for the role due to his actions at the DOJ and that Grassley should have held a hearing with the whistleblower, Reuveni.
“Few judicial nominees have been unqualified as he has for his defiance of basic norms and standards for prosecutors,” Blumenthal said. “This nomination is too important to let slide without proper scrutiny.”
Democrats and outside groups have called Bove unqualified for the post and urged the panel not to vote on his nomination. More than 70 retired state and federal judges appointed by presidents of both parties signed a public letter released Tuesday criticizing Bove’s “egregious record of mistreating law enforcement officers, abusing power, and disregarding the law.”
Those criticisms have not hit home so far among Republicans on the panel.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a panel member who opted not to run for reelection after an earlier conflict with Trump, told reporters that he may support Bove in Thursday’s committee vote. Tillis’ open opposition to U.S. attorney nominee Ed Martin earlier this year resulted in one of the second Trump administration’s few public nomination failures.
“Right now the staff has a yes recommendation and I don’t see any reason to oppose him,” Tillis said.
Democrats have criticized Bove for his role in reassigning or firing prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases, which Tillis differentiated from his criticism of Martin.
Tillis said that he may oppose a nominee who made statements that “excused” the actions of people who attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, or defended those who attacked police officers that day, “the sorts of statements that Ed Martin made” ahead of his nomination to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
But said he has not seen the same about Bove.
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