Emil Bove: The start of a MAGA judiciary?

Emil Bove testifies during his Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing on June 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. — 'The concerns about Bove's nomination aren't frivolous' (Image credit: Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

Senate Republicans are poised to confirm "one of the worst judicial nominations ever," said Jackie Calmes in the Los Angeles Times. The chamber's GOP-led Judiciary Committee voted last week to advance the nomination of Emil Bove— President Trump's former personal attorney "and for the past six months his enforcer in the Justice Department"—to a lifetime post on a federal appeals court. Democrats stormed out of the vote after the panel's chair, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), refused to let some of them air objections or to hear from a whistleblower who alleged that Bove told Justice Department lawyers they'd need to consider saying "F--- you" to judges who block Trump's deportation agenda. That's not the only time Bove, 44, has shown utter contempt for the law: He engineered the pardons of Jan. 6 insurrectionists and the purge of DOJ lawyers who worked their cases, and forced through the dismissal of corruption charges against New York City Mayor—"and sometimes Trump ally"—Eric Adams. Bove is "not merely unqualified to be a judge but disqualified." Yet his nomination is likely to meet little resistance from Trump-fearing Republicans when it reaches the Senate floor.

"The concerns about Bove's nomination aren't frivolous," said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The former federal prosecutor hasn't exactly denied the whistleblower's allegations, saying merely that he didn't recall dropping the f-bomb and that at the time there were "no court orders to discuss" or consider violating. Then there's his nixing of Adams' prosecution, on the grounds that the case was hampering the mayor's cooperation with Trump's migrant crackdown, "an implicit quid pro quo" that led to a series of resignations at the DOJ. Bove clearly has a talent for "pushing legal boundaries," but that's not a desirable quality in a judge.

As a former district attorney, I can't "recall such fierce and widespread opposition" to a nomination, said Mimi Rocah in MSNBC.com. More than 900 former DOJ attorneys and 75 retired judges from across the political spectrum have written the Senate to oppose the confirmation of Bove, who has shown he cannot be trusted "to uphold the Constitution and act with integrity." That's exactly why Trump wants Bove and others like him on the bench, said Jeffrey Toobin in The New York Times. The president has griped that the three conservative Supreme Court justices he appointed in his first term have not sufficiently stood behind his agenda. That wouldn't be a problem with Bove, who has "proved that he belongs to the president" and who Trump is now likely "grooming for bigger things"—including a possible high court seat.