Senate GOP Confirms Trump’s DOJ ‘Hatchet Man’ for Lifetime Judgeship

Senate Republicans confirmed Emil Bove, one of President Donald Trump’s former attorneys, to a lifetime federal judgeship despite multiple whistleblowers alleging that he urged Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to ignore court orders.

The Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Only Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) voted with Democrats against Bove’s nomination.

Bove’s confirmation comes after a former DOJ attorney alleged in a complaint to lawmakers that Bove, a senior official in the deputy attorney general’s office, suggested that the department could ignore court orders to carry out Trump’s aggressive deportations.

Erez Reuveni, a veteran DOJ attorney who was fired earlier this year, said that Bove allegedly told subordinates they may have to tell courts “f*** you” to fly hundreds of people from the U.S. to a Salvadoran megaprison called CECOT after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), an 18th-century wartime law.

Bove, who has been described by former prosecutors as Trump’s “hatchet man” in the department, has denied the claim that he pushed to ignore court orders.

Reuveni later released a trove of text and email exchanges between him and his colleagues and supervisors within the DOJ and officials from other agencies to back up his allegations. In the exchanges, officials repeatedly reference Bove’s alleged “f*** you” remark. They appear alarmed that the Trump administration defied court orders and that DOJ officials could be sanctioned for misleading federal judges.

Days before Tuesday’s vote, a second whistleblower revealed that they sent the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General internal documents that corroborated Reuveni’s allegations against Bove, according to Whistleblower Aid, which is representing both Reuveni and the second whistleblower.

The second whistleblower’s identity remains undisclosed. They, like Reuveni, are a former attorney in the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation who left in March after the Trump administration organized the AEA flights to El Salvador, according to CNN.

The whistleblowers filed their disclosure to the DOJ’s inspector general in May, several weeks before Reuveni sent his complaints to lawmakers and media outlets.

“I think it would be incredibly dangerous for someone like that to have a lifetime appointment as a federal appellate judge,” the whistleblower told CNN.

A third whistleblower also gave senators documentation contradicting claims Bove made during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the Washington Post reported. The Post did not reveal the substance of the documents, but said they shed light on Bove’s behavior regarding a DOJ matter separate from the AEA flights.

The flights to El Salvador ignited a fierce legal battle between the Trump administration and U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered all planes bound for El Salvador to “immediately” return to the U.S., which did not happen.

Boasberg in April found there was probable cause to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt of court for showing “a willful disregard” toward his orders. 

However, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit quickly paused Boasberg’s contempt probe through an ongoing administrative stay. Legal experts have noted the appeals court’s temporary pause has been unusually long.

Trump appointed Bove to a top DOJ post after Bove defended him in three high-profile criminal cases. Bove was part of Trump’s defense team in the classified documents case, the 2020 election interference case and New York’s hush money case, where Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges he faced.

In addition to Bove, Trump installed and nominated several of his other former personal attorneys throughout the DOJ, who have since gone on to use their positions to go after Trump’s opponents.

After assuming his position in the deputy attorney general’s office, Bove helped purge the department of officials deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump and those who worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, several former DOJ prosecutors alleged.

The former prosecutors said Bove was central to scuttling the DOJ’s bribery prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams as part of a political quid pro quo.

Over 900 former DOJ prosecutors and dozens of former federal and state judges opposed Bove’s nomination and urged senators to reject him.