President Donald Trump is nominating Emil Bove, one of his former criminal defense attorneys, for a lifetime appointment to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Bove has no judicial experience, but his past career as one of Trump’s many personal criminal defense attorneys is what’s getting him the slot. Bove’s aggressive service to Trump during his short tenure at the Department of Justice probably didn’t hurt either. Even Trump’s announcement, posted to his Truth Social platform, makes clear that Bove is being sent to the bench to help implement Trump’s warped vision of America, not to be a neutral arbiter of justice. Imagine any other president saying this about a judicial nominee: “Emil is SMART, TOUGH, and respected by everyone. He will end the Weaponization of Justice, restore the Rule of Law, and do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Emil Bove will never let you down!” In contrast, when former President Joe Biden unveiled his first slate of judicial nominees, he noted that the nominees “reflect the full diversity of the American people” and that the list drew from “the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession.” These are not remotely the same sorts of statements as Trump announcing that Emil Bove will never let MAGA down. Though Bove has no judicial experience, don’t sleep on the rich tapestry of things he does have expertise in. Bove is very experienced at defending Trump from the consequences of his own actions, having served as one of Trump’s trial attorneys in his New York State hush money case, which Trump lost. But Bove’s experience isn’t limited to personally defending Trump. As acting attorney general, he was also very accomplished at sparking mass resignations from Justice Department attorneys who refused to go along with the quid pro quo arrangement of DOJ’s dismissal of charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for Adams signing on to Trump’s immigration crackdown. New York Mayor Eric Adams The demand to drop the charges was so outrageous that the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, resigned rather than carry out Bove’s illegal instructions. Sassoon was a Trump appointee, a member of the Federalist Society, and a former clerk to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, but even with that far-right pedigree, Bove’s orders were too much. In fact, his antics in that case netted him a DOJ ethics complaint, but that probably just disappears if he becomes a judge. Bove wasn’t just skilled at getting people to resign. He was also excellent at firing dedicated workers, as evidenced by his throwing out the DOJ prosecutors who worked on criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He also helmed the effort to get the FBI to disclose the names of all agents and staff members who worked on Jan. 6 investigations. This aspect is particularly bizarre for Bove, who, in his pre-Trump life, was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he aggressively pursued investigations and indictments of Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Bove’s DOJ gig didn’t really give him any authority over state and local officials, thanks to states’ rights and all, but that didn’t stop him from threatening them if they wouldn’t help carry out Trump’s brutal immigration actions. Bove was so hyped to watch that he went to Chicago to watch immigration arrests and dramatically declare that we face a “national emergency arising from four years of failed immigration policy.” To be an appealing candidate for a job, though, it’s good to have a well-rounded resume, which may be why Bove branched out into attacking college students. As part of the administration’s full-court press of Columbia University, Bove reportedly demanded a membership list for a student group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest. It was left to other DOJ employees to explain that going after people for their membership in a group is kind of a big First Amendment violation. Bove told prosecutors he planned to share the list with immigration agents, which led prosecutors to refuse to compile the list. A hallmark of Trump’s first term was his terrible judicial nominees—a hodgepodge of racists, lawyers with anger issues, and people so inexperienced they’d barely seen the inside of a courtroom. This time around, if the nomination of Bove is any guide, they’re going to be even worse. Campaign Action
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