Emil Bove Says ‘F—‘ the Courts

Donald Trump rewarded the personal lawyers who represented him in his personal criminal and civil cases with top positions at the Justice Department: Pam Bondi is the attorney general for having
Emil Bove.

defended Trump at one of his impeachment trials; Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, represented Mr. Trump at his Manhattan criminal trial. Emil Bove, another of Trump’s personal attorneys, was made Blanche’s principal deputy after also serving as a defense attorney for Trump in Manhattan.

Bove didn't stay long at Main Justice, as the department is called. Wasting no time, Trump nominated Bove to become a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In a Truth Social post, Trump included this ominous line: Bove will “do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

When at Justice, Bove went promptly to work, engineering the pardons of the 1,600 insurrectionists who had stormed the Capitol in support of Trump’s attempted takeover of the United States government. He then conducted a purge at the DOJ, firing about two dozen lawyers who had prosecuted the insurrectionists. The victims are career public servants revenged for simply doing the jobs assigned to them. Bove called the prosecutions they brought a “grave national injustice.”

Trump’s massive abuse of the president’s pardon power and his pouty retributions, out to ruin people’s lives, are inversions of the law by any measure. Bove was only too willing to be the instrument of his vengeance.

The Southern District of New York, where Bove had once worked, had a strong criminal case of corruption and fraud against the city’s mayor, Eric Adams. Bove stepped in and ordered New York to drop the charges, supposedly because Adams had pledged to help Trump’s immigrant deportation roundups. Former law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia and just made acting U.S. Attorney, Danielle Sassoon resigned in refusal to comply with this flagrant breach of law. The dismissal was to be without prejudice, which meant that if Adams did not prove helpful, the charges against him could be reinstated – clearly a quid pro quo deal. A second attorney, Hagan Scotten, also quit with a memorable resignation letter:

”No system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives… If no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”

past as prologue

When at the Southern District, an internal investigation charged Bove with mistreatment of subordinates. Mr. Bove was “quick to bully and threaten.”

He was accused of “unprofessional and unethical” behavior. It almost led to the demotion his colleagues requested. But Trump probably thought he had found another Roy Cohn.

Before the confirmation hearings, former Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni, who had been fired by Pam Bondi for admitting that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been deported to a prison in El Salvador due to an "administrative error”, filed a whistle-blower complaint that quoted Bove saying in a March meeting that the Justice Department should consider saying “f--- you” to courts that blocked deportation of immigrants under a dubious reading of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. In his confirmation hearing, Bove said he did not recall saying that. “Doesn’t this seem like something a top official would remember saying?” asked The Wall Street Journal. Reuveni released communications to back up his account. In a March text message, when Trump’s deportation flights to El Salvador were about to land, Bove wrote. “Guess its find out time on the f— you."

Democrats had walked out of the judiciary committee's deliberation whether to clear Bove for a Senate vote, furious that Chairman Chuck Grassley (92 in September) had refused to let them voice their objections to Bove or hear directly from the whistle-blower. The full Senate vote to confirm was 50 to 49, with all Republicans, save for Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voting for Bove to take his seat on the bench.

It's a lifetime appointment, but the suspicion is that Trump made this subservient lickspittle a judge to position him as a Supreme Court replacement. Next we may hear murmurings that Trump is trying to persuade Justice Samuel Alito, age 75, and Clarence Thomas, age 77, to step down. Bove is 44 and would be likely to affect rulings of the high court for another 30, even 40, years. How do you suppose the other justices would react to the appointment of a jurist who has shown he has no respect for the law?