Well over 300 federal, Article III judges across the country are former federal prosecutors. They have been nominated by Democratic and Republican presidents in larger numbers than any other group of lawyers. And yet I cannot recall such fierce and widespread opposition to a former prosecutor’s nomination — not just from a range of ideological backgrounds, not just from the legal community generally, but from more than 900 former Justice Department attorneys and former judges — until the nomination of Emil Bove.
Bove has demonstrated a total disregard for the high ethical standards to which most federal prosecutors hold themselves.
Bove is a former Southern District of New York prosecutor-turned-Donald Trump defense lawyer, now serving as the principal associate deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, and he previously was the acting deputy attorney general. He has been nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote this week on whether to advance his nomination to the full Senate.
Since his nomination, former federal prosecutors and judges have been ringing alarm bells with rare intensity and in great numbers opposing his nomination. Why? The short answer: Bove has demonstrated a total disregard for the high ethical standards to which most federal prosecutors hold themselves, and, perhaps worse, he has shown a complete disregard for other lawyers who refuse to do the same.
First, there was Bove’s conduct undoing the prosecutions of Jan. 6 Capitol rioters and punishing those public servants who had been part of the prosecutions. Trump’s pardon dismissals — which Bove helped make happen — of thousands of prosecutions by a prior administration that included trial verdicts, guilty pleas, lengthy sentencing proceedings by judges, months of hard work and sweat by prosecutors and federal agents, is not just bad practice by the Justice Department; it’s a slap in the face to those public servants who worked on these cases and the law enforcement officers injured and traumatized by the events of that day.
Even more shocking, Bove led a politically motivated purge of law enforcement professionals who worked on the cases. He was instrumental in the firing of prosecutors who worked on cases because of the claim that they could not be trusted to carry out “President Trump’s agenda” — something that should have no place in employment decisions of federal prosecutors — and he was behind the firing of FBI agents who had done nothing more than work on cases to which they were assigned. He claimed that these public servants participated “in what the president appropriately described as a ‘grave national injustice’ that has been perpetrated upon the American people.” And Bove did all of this despite the fact that as a national security prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, he had worked on these very same cases.
In his role as acting deputy attorney general, Bove orchestrated a brazen dismissal of criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, in what appeared to be a quid pro quo, in exchange for his cooperation with the Trump administration in immigration enforcement efforts. As if that were not bad enough, he tried to force other prosecutors into compliance.
Trump’s interim U.S. attorney in SDNY, as well as several other prosecutors in New York, resigned over the episode, stating that it would violate their ethical and legal obligations to be part of this dismissal. Bove then reportedly assembled members of the Public Integrity Section at the Justice Department and threatened disciplinary action, including possible firing, if one of them did not sign the motion to dismiss — something I have never heard of happening under any Justice Department leader prior to this. One career attorney who was near retirement ultimately agreed to sign the motion in order to save his colleagues.
In his role as acting deputy attorney general, Bove orchestrated a brazen dismissal of criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
Judge Dale Ho ultimately dismissed the Adams case, noting that he could not force the government to prosecute, but he dismissed it with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be refiled, rather than without prejudice as the government had requested (which would have allowed the administration to continue to hold the charges over Adams’ head). The judge wrote a blistering opinion and agreed that the attempted dismissal by Justice Department and Bove appeared to be part of a corrupt deal between Adams and the administration. He also found, contrary to Bove’s representations, there was absolutely no evidence prosecutors had done anything improper by bringing the case and called Bove’s argued reasons for dismissal “pretextual.”
This kind of critique by a federal judge of one’s integrity would humble if not shame most federal prosecutors — but not Bove.
Most recently, a Justice Department whistleblower has made serious allegations about Bove’s role in deliberate defiance of the very federal bench that he now seeks to join.
Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran Justice Department prosecutor who litigated some of the most divisive cases the department has ever defended and was promoted under Trump, was then fired because he dared to tell a federal judge the truth: that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison by mistake.
Reuveni has filed a whistleblower complaint, which includes a great deal of damaging information about the administration’s disregard for due process and defiance of the courts and about Bove’s leadership of those efforts. The complaint discusses a meeting at the Justice Department in mid-March — after the administration decided to rely upon the Alien Enemies Act to deport the Venezuelan immigrants — at which Bove said that the deportations were a “highest priority” for the president and that the planes with the Venezuelans would be taking off in the next 24 to 48 hours “no matter what.”
In the most explosive allegation, Reuveni reported that Bove said that if they were confronted with a court order to halt the deportations, they would need to consider telling the court “f— you” and continuing anyway — which is exactly what happened. During an emergency hearing as the flights were about to take off, Chief U.S. District Judge Boasberg of the District of Columbia ordered that the deportations be halted and that any planes already on their way be ordered to turn back. The government defied that order, the planes landed, and the immigrants were sent to the supermax prison. During his confirmation hearing, Bove denied advocating defiance of the courts and claimed he could not recall using vulgar language, but emails strongly corroborate Reuveni’s description.
When Trump nominated Bove, the president said Bove would “do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” That is not a qualification for prosecutors or federal judges, who should do everything they can to uphold the Constitution and act with integrity and candor consistent with legal ethics, even if it conflicts with a political agenda. Violating these principles is bad enough, but trying to coerce other attorneys of integrity to do so for your own political gain, as Bove has, is unforgivable.
