The Worst Conceivable Nominee Ever

Trump loyalist Emil Bove could serve on the bench for decades

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

When a group of former federal prosecutors opposed the nomination of Ed Martin as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in May, they called him “one of the worst conceivable selections ever for such an important office.” They now say they’ve found one who’s even worse.

Emil Bove, nominated by President Donald Trump for a judgeship on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, has earned that distinction. In a letter sent Monday to the Senate Judiciary Committee, former assistant U.S. attorneys in Washington wrote that Bove’s selection “has eclipsed the Martin nomination as far worse and far more dangerous.” Trump ultimately withdrew the nomination of Martin, and then installed him as pardon attorney and head of the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group, neither of which require Senate confirmation.

The letter was signed by seven former D.C. prosecutors of both parties, including a one-time president of the D.C. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Association and a former president of the D.C. Bar who also served in the Reagan Administration.

They paint a picture of an operative who is more concerned with pleasing the boss than in upholding the rule of law. The letter cites examples of Bove’s conduct since January in what is supposed to be an apolitical role as a top official at the Department of Justice. Among their exhaustive list of Bove’s disqualifying acts, four stood out to me as particularly egregious.

First was Bove’s role in the firing of federal prosecutors and demotion of supervisors who worked on cases involving the January 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol. The authors found particularly jarring Bove’s adoption of Trump’s characterization of the events as having involved “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated on the American people for the last four years.” Bove seemed to be going along with Trump’s effort to rewrite history about the violence of that day against Capitol police officers. However, according to the authors, Bove himself supervised some of those prosecutions as an AUSA in the Southern District of New York until 2021. In more recent years, Bove served as Trump’s criminal defense attorney.

Second, they also wrote that Bove was behind the baseless and failed effort to obtain a criminal seizure warrant against recipients of energy grants obtained during the Biden Administration. Denise Cheung, a 24-year DOJ veteran, resigned over the episode.

Third, they noted Bove was recently accused by a former DOJ prosecutor of urging the Department to ignore court orders blocking the removal from the United States of undocumented immigrants, which would thwart Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts. Ignoring court orders would violate their oaths to support and defend the Constitution.

Fourth, they describe “Bove’s shameful behavior” in dismissing the criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for his cooperation with the Trump Administration in immigration enforcement efforts, a deal the judge in the case called a “quid pro quo.” Trump’s interim U.S. attorney in SDNY, as well as several other prosecutors in New York and Washington, resigned over the episode. The judge refused to go along with Bove’s plan to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning that it could be revived at any time, for fear that DOJ would try to use its leverage over Adams in a way that could compromise his duty to his constituents.

The concern with a loyalist like Bove on the bench, of course, is that he could seriously undermine the essential independence of the federal judiciary. Judges may be influenced by their own particular worldview, whether conservative, progressive, or somewhere in between, but they are duty-bound to decide cases objectively to the best of their abilities. Bove’s track record suggests that he instead might be a lawless rubber stamp for Trump. If so, he may be inclined to decide cases not on the basis of the evidence or the requirements of the law, but on the outcome that will advance the interests of the Trump Administration, a betrayal to the rule of law.

One of the things that makes Bove’s appointment even more dangerous than Martin’s is its duration. While Martin would have served for four years as Trump’s U.S. Attorney, Bove’s nomination is to a lifetime seat on the court of appeals that reviews federal cases arising out of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. At 44 years old, Bove could serve on the bench for four decades. What’s more, courts of appeals are feeder courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. One could imagine a conservative justice, such as the 77-year-old Clarence Thomas or the 75-year-old Samuel Alito, retiring and being replaced by the newer model, locking up a conservative seat for a generation or more.

From time to time, Trump has expressed frustration with his appointees to the courts, disappointed when they have failed to back his agenda. In particular, Trump and his allies have targeted Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump has privately referred to as “weak,” and whom his supporter Mike Davis has called “a rattled law professor with her head up her a--.” Trump has also complained about the advice he received regarding judicial appointments from Federalist Society president Leonard Leo, whom Trump has called a “sleazebag.” Apparently, Trump wants judges not just with conservative credentials, but with his own transactional worldview.

He may have found one in Bove, who appears willing to corrupt his own office to advance Trump’s agenda. If so, he could indeed be the worst conceivable nominee ever.