PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP said on Wednesday he was nominating Justice Department official Emil Bove, a lawyer who defended Trump when he was convicted of criminal charges over hush money paid to a porn star, to serve as a federal appeals court judge.
Trump announced in a post on his social media platform Truth Social that he named Bove, the principal associate deputy attorney general, to serve as a life-tenured judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“He will end the Weaponization of Justice, restore the Rule of Law, and do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,“ Trump wrote. “Emil Bove will never let you down!”
Bove's appointment must be approved by the Senate, which Trump's Republicans control by a 53-47 margin.
Trump also said he was nominating five Floridians to serve as federal district court judges in their state: Ed Artau, Kyle Dudek, John Guard, Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe and Jordan Pratt.
The announcements brought to 11 the federal judicial nominees Trump has announced in his second term as the president adds to the conservative stamp he made on the federal judiciary with 234 appointments in his first term from 2017 to 2021.
Bove represented Trump at his criminal trial in Manhattan last year alongside Todd Blanche, who is deputy U.S. attorney general.
The jury in the case found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying documents to cover up a payment made ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump has denied such an encounter and is appealing his conviction.
In the first weeks after Trump returned to office in January, Bove served as acting deputy attorney general before Blanche was confirmed by the Senate in his role.
Bove signed his name to a number of policy changes meant to remove what Trump calls political bias but which critics say threaten the Justice Department's traditional independence from the White House.
In a confrontation that sent shockwaves through the legal profession, Bove in February instructed prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office – where Bove used to work – to drop a corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
When the prosecutors refused to do so, Bove took over the case against Adams, who had pleaded not guilty, and argued in court himself - a highly unusual move for a senior Justice Department official.
Ultimately, the judge overseeing the case dismissed the charges, but said the Justice Department's argument that the case should be dropped because it was interfering with the Democratic mayor's help with Trump's federal immigration crackdown “smacks of a bargain”.
Bove's order to dismiss the Adams case prompted 11 prosecutors in Washington and New York to resign.
Ethics complaints
Government ethics advocacy groups, state officials and members of Congress filed ethics complaints against Bove with a New York disciplinary body for lawyers. One group, the Campaign for Accountability, on Wednesday said the body notified it that it declined to investigate Bove.
Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed concern over the nomination of Bove, who he said had “abused his position in numerous ways.”
“Mr. Bove's alleged misconduct not only speaks to his fitness as a lawyer, but his activities are part of a broader pattern by President Trump and his allies to undermine the traditional independence of the Justice Department and the rule of law,“ Durbin said in a statement.
The 3rd Circuit, which hears appeals in cases from Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has six active judges appointed by Republican presidents, six named by Democrats and two vacancies.
Trump is nominating Bove to fill a New Jersey-based vacancy on the court, a White House official said.
That seat was left vacant after Democratic former President Joe Biden's nomination of Adeel Mangi to become the nation's first Muslim federal appeals court judge
stalled in the Senate
following fierce Republican opposition.
Earlier in his career, Bove served as co-chief of the terrorism and international narcotics unit at the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office.
As a prosecutor from 2012 through 2021, Bove secured the conviction of a former Honduran president's brother on drug charges and the guilty plea of a New York man who tried to support the Islamic State militant group.
