Emil Bove appointed to appellate court despite whistleblowers
July 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate on Tuesday narrowly approved Emil Bove, who served as President Donald Trump's personal defense attorney, for a lifetime judicial appointment despite facing multiple whistleblower complaints.
Bove was confirmed as a judge on the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit Court of Appeals on a 50-49 vote, with Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voting with Democrats against him. Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee was absent.
The vote follows one of the most heated sets of Senate hearings on any of Trump's judicial nominees. Three whistleblowers alleged that Bove, a high-ranking Justice Department official, misled lawyers and pressed career prosecutors to ignore court orders to advance Trump's political goals. Bove has denied the allegations, calling them "partisan attacks."
Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an X post that Bove was "a terrible choice for the federal bench."
"Mr. Bove's primary qualification appears to be his blind loyalty to this president," Durbin wrote.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the committee, responded during a floor speech saying Democrats' attacks on Bove were unfair and he saw no evidence of misconduct.
"Since the very beginning of this Congress, Democrats have engaged in a relentless obstruction campaign for nearly every one of President Trump's nominees," he said.
The first whistleblower complaint was filed by Erez Reuveni, a now fired Department of Justice lawyer, who accused Bove of directing the Trump administration to disregard a court order to stop deporting migrants to a Salvadoran prison. A second complaint from an unnamed Department of Justice attorney backs up the first, claiming that Bove and other officials were "actively and deliberately undermining the rule of law."
As the Senate neared its final vote on the nomination, a third whistleblower complaint accused Bove of misleading lawmakers when he denied pressing prosecutors to help broker the dismissal of the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, reports The Washington Post.
Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated Bove's confirmation in a post on X.
"This is a GREAT day for out country," she said, while thanking him for "his tireless work and support" at the Justice Department.
"He will be missed -- and he will be an outstanding judge," she said.
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