(WASHINGTON) — A Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to consider Emil Bove for a federal judgeship began Wednesday with the committee’s ranking Democratic member listing a number of controversial moves Bove has made as a top Justice Department official.
President Donald Trump last month tapped Bove, his former defense attorney who took aggressive moves to enforce Trump’s political agenda at the DOJ in the early months of his presidency, for a judgeship on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The former personal defense attorney of President Trump, Mr. Bove has led the effort to weaponize the Department of Justice against the president’s enemies,” Sen. Dick Durbin said in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s hearing. “Having earned his stripes as a loyalist to this President, he’s been rewarded with this lifetime nomination.”
Republican Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley cast Bove as a victim of an “intense opposition campaign” by Democrats and the media.
“I think that this committee owes this nominee a fair shake and respect at this hearing,” Grassley said. “This is hardly the first time this Congress that we’ve come into a nomination hearing against a backdrop of breathless claims that one of President Trump’s nominees is uniquely unqualified or unfit.”
The hearing comes one day after a former top DOJ career official issued an explosive whistleblower complaint accusing Bove of allegedly suggesting the Trump administration should defy judicial orders that sought to restrict their aggressive efforts to deport undocumented immigrants earlier this year.
The 27-page complaint, provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department’s top watchdog and obtained by ABC News, alleges that Bove and other top DOJ officials strategized how they could mislead courts regarding the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and potentially ignore judges’ rulings outright.
Grassley, in his remarks Wednesday, argued that lawmakers should instead look to Bove’s resume as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and his time as a judicial clerk on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, prior to serving as Trump’s personal attorney.
“This high stakes worked demands sharp legal judgment and steady resolve,” Grassley said. “Day in and day out, he was in the trenches putting terrorists and drug traffickers behind bars … Put very simply, Mr. Bove checks every box — academic distinction, federal courtships, complex trial and appellate litigation, senior Justice Department leadership. His experience isn’t just sufficient, it is very exceptional.”
Tuesday’s whistleblower complaint adds to an already lengthy list of controversies that Democrats on the committee plan to highlight as they make their case that Bove weaponized his role at the Justice Department to implement Trump’s political priorities while shirking institutional norms and adherence to the law.
Bove will also likely face questions over his role in dropping the criminal corruption prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for his support on the Trump Administration’s immigration agenda.
Multiple career prosecutors resigned in protest over the move and described the arrangement as a clear ‘quid pro quo.’ A federal judge ultimately rejected the department’s request to drop the case ‘without prejudice’ — which would have left the prospect they could seek charges against Adams again if he did not continue supporting the administration. In his ruling dismissing the charges, Judge Dale Ho was deeply skeptical of the government’s motives, writing, “Everything here smacks of a bargain.”
Adams has denied the allegations and has pushed back on accusations of a quid quo pro.
In the opening weeks of Trump’s presidency, Bove also thrust the FBI into crisis after demanding a list from leadership of all the names of FBI agents who worked on the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In a brief standoff with the acting leadership of the bureau who initially resisted handing over the list, Bove accused them of “insubordination” — before later clarifying agents would only face potential discipline if they were found to have acted unethically in their duties.
Former colleagues of Bove who worked with him during his time as a prosecutor in U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, have noted he himself was an aggressive advocate for investigating and prosecuting individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6.
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