Washington — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday will consider the nomination of Emil Bove, President Trump’s former defense lawyer and a top Justice Department official, to serve a lifetime appointment as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
If Bove clears the GOP-led panel, he will surmount a key hurdle amid staunch opposition from a host of former federal prosecutors and judges, as well as allegations of unethical conduct by a Justice Department whistleblower.
Bove’s path to winning approval from the Judiciary Committee became easier earlier this week, when Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told reporters that he was inclined to back his nomination. But it’s less clear whether he will be confirmed by the full Senate. Republicans hold 53 seats in the upper chamber, meaning the nomination would fail if Bove loses the support of four GOP senators.
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Mr. Trump announced in May that he had selected Bove to fill a vacancy on the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit, which covers Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Bove was part of the legal team that represented the president in his criminal cases, including the New York hush-money trial and the two federal cases brought by former special counsel Jack Smith.
After Mr. Trump won a second term, he selected Bove to serve as principal associate deputy attorney general. Bove also worked as the acting deputy attorney general while Todd Blanche, the current deputy, awaited confirmation by the Senate.
Bove has been embroiled in controversy since joining the Justice Department. He was accused of pushing a quid pro quo in which the Justice Department would drop its prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for commitments on immigration. Several prosecutors resigned in the wake of the move regarding Adams’ case.
Bove defended the decision to drop the charges against Adams, telling senators in a questionnaire to the Judiciary Committee that it was “well within the scope of prosecutorial discretion.” He also argued that Adams’ submissions to the court “refute false public allegations by third parties regarding some sort of improper quid pro quo.”
Earlier this month, a former Justice Department attorney who handled immigration cases filed a whistleblower claim with the Senate that accused Bove of suggesting that the administration ignore court orders. The lawyer, Erez Reuveni, worked for more than a decade at the Justice Department and was most recently the acting deputy director of its Office of Immigration Litigation.
He was fired in April after he told a federal judge that the administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador had been an administrative error. A top immigration official with the administration had acknowledged in a March court filing that Abrego Garcia’s removal was an “error” and an “oversight.”
Reuveni wrote in his report that during one meeting about Mr. Trump’s proclamation invoking the wartime Alien Enemies Act, Bove said that the Justice Department would need to consider telling the courts “f**k you” if a judicial order blocked removals under the law.
Emails and text messages shared with the Senate by the whistleblower include exchanges between Reuveni and a colleague at the Justice Department in which they appear to be referring to Bove’s alleged directive regarding court orders.
The Justice Department has defended Bove and sought to paint Reuveni as a “disgruntled former employee.” Blanche said the claims about Bove and other top Justice Department officials are “utterly false.”
White House spokesman Harrison Fields has also praised Bove as an “incredibly talented legal mind and a staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution who will make an excellent circuit court judge.”
During his confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee in June, Bove denied Reuveni’s allegations that he urged department attorneys to violate a court order.
But Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, said that the text messages, email exchanges and other documents show that the Justice Department misled a federal court and disregarded a court order.
“Mr. Bove spearheaded this effort, which demanded attorneys violate their ethical duty of candor to the court,” Durbin said.
