Washington — The Senate on Tuesday approved the nomination of Emil Bove, President Trump’s former defense lawyer, to serve on a U.S. appeals court, confirming the controversial nominee to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench.
The upper chamber voted 50-49 to green-light Bove’s nomination to the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which oversees cases from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“He has a strong legal background and has served his country honorably. I believe he will be diligent, capable and a fair jurist,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said of Bove on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.
Bove emerged as Mr. Trump’s most controversial judicial pick so far, and former judges, prosecutors and other Justice Department employees had urged senators to reject his nomination. A Justice Department whistleblower alleged that Bove had suggested government lawyers should ignore court orders, prompting Democrats to unsuccessfully push for the Senate Judiciary Committee to delay a vote on his nomination. When the panel voted earlier this month to advance his nomination, all of the panel’s Democrats walked out of the meeting in protest.
Two more whistleblowers have since turned over information about Bove to either the Justice Department’s internal watchdog or lawmakers, according to the organization Whistleblower Aid, which represents one of the people, and the Washington Post, which reported on evidence given to Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
Booker and Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, asked the Justice Department’s acting inspector general on Monday whether he has launched any investigations related to Bove and said the allegations of misconduct are “troubling.”
Bove was one of the lawyers who represented the president in his criminal cases and he joined the Justice Department as principal associate deputy attorney general when Mr. Trump returned to the White House for a second term. Bove also served briefly as acting deputy attorney general in the opening weeks of the second Trump administration until the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche, also a former defense lawyer for the president, to the No. 2 spot.
But former Justice Department prosecutors accused Bove of executing mass firings at the department of employees who were “perceived not to show sufficient loyalty” to Mr. Trump, including officials who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into the president, which yielded two prosecutions that have since been dropped.
Bove was also at the center of a controversy involving the Justice Department’s decision to drop its prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for cooperation with immigration enforcement. Several prosecutors who worked on Adams’ case resigned after Bove directed them to dismiss the charges against the mayor and said the move appeared to be a quid pro quo.
But Bove brushed away the accusations, telling senators in a questionnaire to the Judiciary Committee that the decision to drop the five-count indictment against Adams was within the scope of prosecutorial discretion. He also said Adams’ own submissions to the court refute the allegations of an “improper quid pro quo.”
Bove also faced allegations of unethical conduct from a fired Justice Department lawyer, who filed a whistleblower report with lawmakers last month. The attorney, Erez Reuveni, claimed Bove suggested that the administration should ignore court orders regarding the administration’s efforts to remove migrants under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
Reuveni alleged that during a March meeting with senior department officials about removal flights, Bove suggested that the department would need to consider telling the courts to “f**k you” if a judge blocked deportations under the 1798 law.
Emails and text messages that Reuveni provided to senators include exchanges with a Justice Department colleague in which they appear to be referring to Bove’s alleged directive regarding judicial orders.
A second Justice Department whistleblower submitted documents to the department’s internal watchdog that supports Reuveni’s claims, according to the organization Whistleblower Aid, which is representing the lawyer.
Reuveni worked at the Justice Department for nearly 15 years and had been promoted to acting deputy director of its Office of Immigration Litigation in March. But he was fired in April after telling a federal judge that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was deported to his home country in March, should not have been removed. An immigration official with the Trump administration had acknowledged in a March court filing that Abrego Garcia’s removal was an “administrative error” and an “oversight.”
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee attempted to push the panel to delay the vote to advance Bove’s nomination and allow Reuveni to testify, but Grassley rejected the move.
The White House and Justice Department have defended Bove and claimed that Reuveni was a “disgruntled former employee.” Grassley lambasted Democrats for their handling of Bove’s nomination and said they have tried to obstruct nearly all of Mr. Trump’s nominees.
“The vicious rhetoric, unfair accusations and abuse directed at Mr. Bove by some on this committee, it has crossed the line,” he said.
Blanche wrote in an op-ed for Fox News that Bove is “the most capable and principled lawyer I have ever known,” and said his “legal acumen is extraordinary and his moral clarity is above reproach.”
