Incensed Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, among them New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, stormed out of a committee meeting today after a vote on controversial Third Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Emil Bove, saying that the committee had not been given adequate opportunity to review Bove’s nomination and the allegations of misconduct that Bove faces.
A roll-call vote on Bove’s nomination was held, with all 12 Republicans voting in favor and all ten Democrats not casting any votes at all; Democrats walked out shortly after the vote was conducted. Despite Democratic protests to the contrary, the vote was determined to have been properly conducted – though it’s not entirely clear how it will be officially reported – and Bove will now head to the full Senate for confirmation to a lifetime judgeship.
Bove, a top official at the Justice Department and a former personal attorney for President Donald Trump, was nominated to a New Jersey-based seat on the Third Circuit – which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware – in May, and he quickly became a lightning rod for criticism. Bove’s past conduct at the Justice Department and at U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, Democrats (as well as many former judges and prosecutors) argued, made him unfit to serve on the federal bench.
Of particular concern for Democrats, and the issue that caused today’s committee meeting to melt down, was a whistleblower report from Justice Department official Erez Reuveni alleging that Bove had encouraged subordinates to disregard federal court orders: they should “consider telling the courts ‘fuck you,’” Bove is alleged to have said. Booker and his fellow Democrats had requested that the Judiciary Committee hold a hearing with Reuveni before Bove’s nomination came up for a vote, but they were rebuffed.
During today’s hearing, Booker made a motion to push back the vote until Reuveni could make an appearance before the committee, but Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) again turned him down. Shortly afterwards, Grassley moved to cut off debate on Bove’s nomination entirely after around an hour, prompting outcry from Booker and other Democrats on the committee.
“This is unbelievable, this is unjust, this is wrong, it is the further deterioration of this committee’s integrity,” Booker said. “What are you afraid of?”
Booker tried to argue that committee rules allowed his colleagues to continue speaking on the nomination, but Grassley plowed through the roll call vote anyways, and Democrats walked out in protest; Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) likened it to a “kangaroo court.” Booker continued speaking over the following roll call votes for several more minutes before he, too, left the committee room.
Grassley, for his part, said at the beginning of the hearing that he believed Bove had been treated unfairly by both Democrats and the media, saying that Bove’s critics had “crossed the line.”
“What we’re witnessing has all the hallmarks of a political hit job, timed for maximum media splash with minimum substance,” Grassley said.
Critically, Grassley’s opinions seemed to be shared by the main Republican swing vote on the committee, retiring Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina). Tillis had sunk a prior Trump U.S. Attorney nominee over the nominee’s views on the January 6 attack on the Capitol, but he said that until Democrats produced any evidence that Bove had condoned or encouraged violence against police officers, he saw no reason to oppose his nomination.
Support from Tillis, one of only a handful of Republican senators consistently willing to vote against his party, will also help Bove get the 50 votes he would eventually need to win confirmation on the Senate floor. Booker, though, said last month that he and his colleagues are working to convince other crucial Republicans to oppose Bove’s nomination.
Though today’s meeting revolved largely around Bove, the man himself was not present to speak with senators; his confirmation hearing, in which members of the committee were given the ability to question him directly, came last month.
At that hearing, Democrats honed in on Bove’s many controversies: the Reuveni whistleblower report; Bove’s role in directing prosecutors to drop charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a move that one prosecutor said amounted to a quid pro quo; and Bove’s allegedly fiery and difficult temperament while working as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
Bove replied to many of their questions by saying that he wasn’t at liberty to divulge certain information or that he didn’t recall the answer at all; many Democrats called him evasive (and Booker even accused him of perjury). But in broad strokes, Bove denied their accusations, saying that he was committed to being a fair upholder of the law.
“I am someone who tries to stand up for what I believe is right,” Bove said. “I’m not afraid to make difficult decisions. I understand that some of those decisions have generated controversy.… But I want to be clear about one thing up front: there is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media. I am not anybody’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer.”
Since that hearing, further developments have brought even more attention to the nomination. Earlier this week, more than 75 former state and federal judges called on the Senate to reject Bove, saying that his confirmation would “set a dangerous precedent that judicial power may be wielded in service of personal fealty rather than constitutional duty”; CBS also recently reported on a written response Bove sent to senators that declined to condemn January 6 rioters.
And as Republicans and the Trump administration are consumed with infighting over the Jeffrey Epstein files, Booker sent a letter to Bove yesterday asking him about the extent of his involvement in how the Justice Department has handled the files; Booker said this morning that Bove did not respond.
For Senate Democrats, Bove’s nomination especially stings because, had they acted more effectively when they had the majority, the seat wouldn’t have been Trump’s to fill in the first place. Third Circuit Judge Joseph Greenaway, a Barack Obama appointee, retired in 2023, and President Joe Biden nominated a North Jersey lawyer named Adeel Mangi to succeed him at Booker’s recommendation. Mangi, though, ran into severe opposition from both Republicans and a few critical Democrats in the Senate, dooming his nomination.
Booker and Senator Andy Kim said that they met with Trump officials early on in the president’s new term to work together to find a new Third Circuit nominee acceptable to all of them. Trump, though, instead went with Bove, whom Booker and Kim both find unacceptable – and who has remarkably weak ties to New Jersey, being listed on his nomination paperwork as “Emil J. Bove III of Pennsylvania.”
(For a time, it wasn’t even clear whether Bove had been nominated for the Newark-based Greenaway seat or a different open seat in Delaware. Yesterday, Trump announced that he had chosen Jennifer Mascott, who works in his counsel’s office, to fill the Delaware seat.)
Since home-state senators aren’t typically given veto power over Circuit Court nominees, even those from their home states, Booker and Kim were powerless to halt Bove’s nomination from advancing once Trump had named him as his pick.
“This process, with Emil Bove, started with my office, as well as Senator Andy Kim’s, saying to the White House that we were willing to work with them to find someone,” Booker said during today’s hearing. “The White House counsel completely violated the process we had agreed upon, and thrust this [nominee] onto the state of New Jersey.”
This story was updated at 3:03 p.m. to note that the vote on Bove’s nomination was, in fact, successful.
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February 16, 2021