The Democrats of the Judicial Committee of the Senate withdrew before the Republicans voted Thursday to advance in the nomination of President Donald Trump to Emil Bove, the controversial official of the Department of Justice who previously served as Trump’s defense lawyer, to a seat in the powerful Court of Appeals of Third Third Circuit.
The Democrats left before the Republicans forced the vote for the appointment of the whole life of Bove in the Court of Appeals that supervises the districts in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Bove has generated repeatedly criticisms of Democrats in the first six months of Trump’s presidency to cultivate a reputation as one of President Trump’s main executors in the Department of Justice.
The vote of the Judicial Committee of the Senate controlled by the Republicans to advance Bove means that it will later face a vote in the complete Senate.
Democratic Senator Cory Booker spoke furiously from the stand, pleading with the president of the Senate Judicial Committee, Chuck Grassley, which allows a greater debate on the nomination of Bove, but Grassley decreased.
“What are you afraid to discuss this?” Booker asked Grassley.
“Lord, with all the appeals to their decency, with all the appeals to your integrity, with all the appeals to past jurisdictions and past precedents, why are you doing this?” Booker asked.
Emil Bove, nominated for President Donald Trump, will be the US circuit judge for the third circuit, testifies during his nomination hearing of the Senate Judicial Committee, on June 25, 2025 in Washington.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
More than 900 former employees of the Department of Justice sent a letter to the Senate Judicial Committee on Wednesday urging legislators to vote for the Bove nomination.
He has fired dozens of officials of his career in Main Justice and the FBI, including prosecutors who worked on Trump’s investigations of former special lawyer Jack Smith, as well as in the assault of January 6 to the United States Capitol for a Pro-Trump mafia.
Bove was also in the center of the controversial decision of the department to eliminate the case of federal corruption against the Democratic Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, which led to the resignations of multiple prosecutors who argued that the effort seemed to be a ‘Quid Pro quo’ to ensure the cooperation of ADAMS with the immigration application actions of the Trump administration.
Adams and Bove have denied such an agreement of “Quid Pro quo”, but when they agree to withdraw the charges, the federal judge supervising the case of Adams gave the writing of the Department of Justice: “Everything here smells like a bargain.”
“The trampling of Mr. Bove on the institutional norms in this case, and in others, he sent shock waves through the ranks: the morale of craters, triggering mass outputs and eroding the effectiveness of the vital work of the Department of Justice,” wrote prosecutors on Bove. “The fiscal authority has deep consequences on the lives of people and the integrity of our public institutions; exercising it without impartiality is a flagrant abuse of that power.”
More recently, however, Bove’s actions have been subject to scrutiny as the object of a complaints of the DAJ lawyer, Erez Reuveni, who accused Bove and other senior doj officials to repeatly discuss how they could disobey the orders of the Court that seek to restrict the immigration actions of the Trump administration.
Reuveni’s complaint claimed that at a BOVE meeting he suggested “F — you” to the courts that can try to block deportations under the alien enemies law.
During his confirmation hearing, Bove played much of Reuveni’s complaint, although he only said that “he could not remember” to use such an improper to describe his response to a court order.
“Each of the insignified testified, under oath, that we have never said, and never, we would tell a lawyer from the Department of Justice to consider challenging a court order,” said the letter. “In addition, the subsequent challenge of the Department of Justice to judicial mandates in cases where Mr. Bove was reviewed for doing so also suggests that ignoring judicial orders was Mr. Bove’s intention all the time.”
The Republicans in the committee rushed to Bove’s defense following the complaints of complainants, and accused Reuveni of associating with the Democrats when dealing with the nomination of Tank Bove when he presented it to the committee only 24 hours before he appeared publicly before them.
Responding to the letter of former officials of the Department of Justice on Wednesday, department official Brian Nieves attacked Justice Connection as a “political success team disguised as a support network” and said “they certainly do not speak for the Department of Justice.”
“They speak for an angry bitter faction that no longer call the shots,” said Nieves, deputy director of the attached attorney general Todd Blanche. “His attacks against Emil Bove are dishonest, coordinated and shameful.”
