Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 126 (Wednesday, July 23, 2025)

[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 126 (Wednesday, July 23, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4607-S4617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

Judicial Nominations

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am here with a number of colleagues
on probably one of the most important decisions we are going to make
with respect to the future of justice in America: the nomination of
Emil Bove to be a judge on the court of appeals for the Third Circuit,
the second highest panel in our judiciary.
And he is about as unfit and unqualified as any judicial nominee to
come before this body in my 15 years here. And I say that with sadness
as well as anger, as someone who still proudly would call myself a
litigator, a trial lawyer, and a member of the Judiciary Committee,
where I am proud to serve with my great colleague, the ranking member
now, Senator Durbin.
And he and others from that committee will come before us tonight. We
are here not only on the merits of Mr. Bove but also because we were
denied an opportunity in the committee to present fairly and fully our
case against Mr. Bove based on the record, and we were denied an
opportunity to

[[Page S4608]]

elicit from the Department of Justice and the administration the facts
that are necessary to evaluate his nomination.
We were denied the opportunity to have a whistleblower come before
the committee, a whistleblower who bravely came forward with facts
showing how Mr. Bove suggested--indeed, urged--that lawful court orders
be disobeyed; that the Department of Justice ought to tell the courts
to eff themselves.
We were denied access to an Office of Professional Responsibility
investigation bearing on this nomination: an OPR inquiry into the
failure of the team supervised by Mr. Bove to divulge to the defense
exculpatory evidence, as they were obligated to do, during a
prosecution when he was an assistant U.S. attorney.
And Mr. Bove himself, in the hearing that we conducted, was evasive,
obfuscating. He refused point-blank to answer relevant questions.
One of my colleagues, Senator Whitehouse, who will be here tonight,
characterized it as the ``deliberative process privilege.'' There is no
deliberative process privilege, and Mr. Bove had no right to refuse to
answer our questions about what he has done in his role during the
first 6 months of this administration.
The fact is, he has been involved in a pattern of lawlessness and
recklessness, a violation of individual rights and liberties, a pattern
of corruption unprecedented in the history of the U.S. Department of
Justice. And he has been integral to it, participating actively in it.
We have opposed other nominees because we disagree with their
judicial philosophy. We have opposed them because they were out of the
mainstream; they were ideologues with an ax to grind that was
potentially detrimental to rights and liberties.
Mr. Bove is in a different category. Yes, he is conservative. He is
out of the mainstream. But he is corrupt. He is dangerous, vindictive,
and revengeful in a way that this administration has made a pattern of
doing.

So I am here to urge my colleagues to stand with us and oppose this
nomination. I know the strong dynamic--we have seen it again and again
and again, no matter how many doubts my colleagues may have--to toe the
line in thrall of President Trump or in fear of him. But the record
here speaks powerfully--or it should--to our conscience and conviction.
This nominee epitomizes the Trump demand for loyalty and fealty above
all else to him, a sense that he has the power to do what no ordinary
American can expect from judges or from prosecutors; that they will, in
effect, rig the system in his favor, as Mr. Bove has done while
representing, supposedly, the Department of Justice because he was--
like Pam Bondi and others who have taken senior positions--a lawyer, in
fact, for President Trump, his personal lawyer, defending him against
claims in his personal capacity before he took this role in the
Department of Justice.
A lot has been made of Mr. Bove's role in dismissing the case against
Eric Adams, the mayor of New York. I am not going to go through all the
details except to say that Danielle Sassoon refused to make the
argument in favor of dismissing those charges in exchange for
concessions on immigration policy. She said it was ``an improper offer
of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal.''
The lead prosecutor on the Adams case resigned rather than take Mr.
Bove's order, and he, too, said that it would be a violation of
conscience and conviction and that anyone ``who is enough of a fool, or
enough of a coward, to file your motion'' should not do so.
The judge indicates ``everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal
of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.'' He
called Mr. Bove's position ``fundamentally incompatible with the basic
promise of equal justice under law''--a quid pro quo deal. But Mr. Bove
said it was fine.
Even more disgracefully, he said a court cannot review, at all, a
dismissal of this kind. This attitude toward the law alone should
disqualify him, but he went further in a March meeting, according to
the whistleblower. He said, essentially, that lawful court orders
shouldn't be obeyed. That is the nominee for a judgeship saying that
judges ought to be defied.
He should not be under consideration for this lifetime appointment
for these reasons and others that my colleagues who are coming to the
floor tonight will describe in detail. The short-circuiting and
straitjacketing of the consideration of Mr. Bove will be a stain on the
U.S. Senate. And make no mistake, we will rue the day--my colleagues
will--if they vote for this nominee.
And we should not in any way turn a blind eye toward the other
nominees that will be before us for the district court: Josh Divine,
Maria Lanahan, Jordan Pratt--all nominated to serve as district court
judges on the Federal bench. They have made careers of crusading
against reproductive rights.
Judge Pratt wrote an amicus brief supporting Florida's 15-week
abortion ban. He called the procedure ``barbaric'' and ``one of the
most severe invasions of personal rights imaginable.''
Judge Pratt went so far as to raise questions not put before the
court by parties and invite the Florida attorney general to intervene
and weigh in on these questions.
He wrote an opinion holding unconstitutional a Florida law that
allows minors to seek abortions without parental consent through
judicial waivers. The case didn't require a court to rule on the law's
constitutionality, but Judge Pratt took it upon himself to do so.
And Mr. Divine led and Ms. Lanahan worked on Missouri's legal
challenge against mifepristone. The science is clear: Mifepristone is
safe. Yet Mr. Divine and Ms. Lanahan didn't hesitate--not at all--to
challenge its approval. And their court filing cited two research
studies, mere weeks after he filed the complaint, that were retracted
due to a lack of scientific rigor, problematic methodology, and
undisclosed bias.
Edward Artau, nominated for the Southern District of Florida--the
ethical lapses on his part were undeniable when he failed to recognize
the obvious conflict and recuse himself from his involvement in a case
involving the President at a time when he potentially was under
consideration for a nomination.
These nominations are unqualified. They have revealed themselves to
be incapable to meet basic standards of ethical conduct, judicial
independence, and, if confirmed, they would extend the administration,
in its reach into the courts, in effect, cosigning the President's most
destructive and dangerous impulses, regardless of legality.
I urge my colleagues to join us in opposing these nominees. Mr. Bove
should not be before this body, and I hope my colleagues will recognize
the importance of standing strong and speaking out and voting against
his nomination and the others that have been made.
Mr. President, I yield to the senior Senator from Illinois, the
ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, our great colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from
Connecticut Senator Blumenthal. He brings a level of expertise and
experience to the Judiciary Committee and the Senate that is really
unmatched. He has been a friend and a faithful participant in this
process and in all the time I have served with him. I thank him for
bringing us together this evening.
Mr. President, last Friday, I was in Chicago for the formal
ceremonial investiture of a new Federal district court judge named
April Perry.
April Perry has an interesting story that brought her to the bench.
The story starts with her nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for the
Northern District of Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago. She
was extremely well-qualified for that position and went through the
Judiciary Committee--at the time, I was chairing it--and went through
without a hitch. She was approved and on the list of U.S. attorneys.
Now, historically, U.S. attorneys were chosen by voice vote. When
President Trump was in his first term in office, I believe he had
around 90 U.S. attorneys spread all across the United States, and all
but one, perhaps--I am trying to make sure I am accurate here--all but
one was approved by voice vote.

[[Page S4609]]

Now, look at what happens: To bring a U.S. attorney before us is a
much different process today.
What happened?
The Democrats gave President Trump all of his U.S. attorney nominees
in his first term, with perhaps one exception, by voice vote. Now, it
goes through an elaborate, time-consuming process. What happened?
The Vice President of the United States happened.
Vice President JD Vance, from the State of Ohio, decided to come to
the floor during the Biden administration, after we had approved 63
U.S. attorneys, and to object to a voice vote. Now, he said, we are
going to go through the regular process. I don't like the way the
Department of Justice has treated the former President--at the time,
Donald Trump. So we are going to insist you dot all the i's and cross
all the t's and go through the process and take several days on each
one of the U.S. attorney nominees.
He made that decision after 63 had been approved under Biden, and he
made it when April Perry was pending. This was her chance--the Northern
District of Illinois--and JD Vance said: No, not the ordinary process,
not a voice vote. We are going to take our time.
He applied the standard not just to my U.S. attorney in Illinois but
to his own U.S. attorney in Cleveland, OH. He was resolute: We are
going to stop the way this has been done in the past.
That was literally the end of the consideration of U.S. attorneys
under Joe Biden. If that was his goal--JD Vance's goal, the Vice
President's goal--he achieved it.
So what happened next to April Perry, a wonderfully qualified nominee
running for U.S. attorney? Well, we sat down and decided that we didn't
want to waste that talent. I went to her and said: Would you consider
the vacancy for U.S. district court that is open now? You have gone
through the vetting. You have gone through the background checks. The
FBI has asked all the hard questions. They interviewed all the
attorneys you have worked with. Everyone finds you acceptable. Would
you consider the Federal bench?
And she said: Yes.
And she was approved. We had her formal investiture this last Friday.
Those are happy occasions, and there aren't many of them, I am sure,
in the Federal courthouse--at least not of this caliber.
District Court Judge Virginia Kendall, who is the presiding judge
over the Northern District, called together her colleagues to witness
this investiture, this happy day for a judge, April Perry. She brought
in about 30 Federal district court judges from the Northern District
and a number from the ninth district--or the seventh district--of the
appellate court. And it dawned on me, as I attended this ceremony for
April Perry, that this has turned out to be an important part of my
Senate career.
If you would have asked me when I ran for the Senate, ``What about
the appointment of judges?'' I would have said, ``Well, that is fairly
routine.'' It turns out it is not. It is more than routine. It is one
of the more important things you do because the men and women chosen to
serve in the Federal court system, article III judges, are appointed
for life--for life. To remove them, you have to go through an
impeachment through Congress to remove a Federal court judge. That is
how important it is. That is how permanent it is--the permanent nature
of it--and that is why each selection makes a difference.
I looked at the 30 or so judges that gathered and realized I had a
hand in appointing every single one of them and many others too.
And so you go through that process a number of times and you learn. I
look back now on all of the district court judges that I have had a
hand in choosing, and, I will tell you, for two or three, it was a
mistake. If I had it to do over again, I would have asked more
questions, and I would have had more information on those who were
chosen. But that is over a span of 29 years--two to three. Those who
were approved, dozens of others, have really done well, and they have
been praised for the job that they did.
So when I was chairman of this committee--fortunate to have that
opportunity--we approved, in a 4-year period of time, a record number
of Federal court judges: 235.
President Trump, in his first term, had done 234. We passed him by
one court judge, and I am proud of that because it was a lot of hard
work.
In order to report a judge out of the Judiciary Committee, every
single Democrat had to be in their seats for every minute of the vote.
There was no proxy. You had to be there. And they showed up, and
Senator Blumenthal was one of those. Senator Welch, who has joined us
now, was in the Judiciary Committee. And I salute that.
Now, under the second term of President Trump, the rules are
changing. They weren't very good in the first round, and they are worse
now.

The first Trump administration put forward some of the most extreme
judicial nominees ever considered by the Senate. Several Trump nominees
had little or no experience in a courtroom--no litigation experience.
Would you hire a lawyer to take your case to trial if they had never
been in a trial in their lives?
Three district court nominees--Kathryn Mizelle, Justin Walker, and
Sarah Pitlyk won unanimous support from committee Republicans, despite
having never tried a case.
Imagine you are going in a courtroom, you are presiding over a trial,
and you have never seen one; you have never been in one. You may have
seen one on television. You keep looking for Perry Mason and are
wondering what is next.
That, unfortunately, was the reality with many of these nominees in
Trump's first term. Many Trump nominees took some unusual--if not
controversial, if not plain--wrong decisions.
Lawrence VanDyke was a Ninth Circuit nominee. We asked him to affirm
that he would be fair--that he would be fair to LGBTQ individuals. He
wouldn't say it. He just couldn't get the words out of his mouth.
Michael Truncale, an Eastern District of Texas nominee, said of
President Obama that he was an ``un-American imposter.'' Those are the
words of this man seeking the Federal bench about the former President.
He said he would ``bow to Arab sheiks and other world leaders.''
Where did you find that nominee?
The first Trump administration put forward--get this now--10 judicial
nominees whom the American Bar Association found to be ``not
qualified'' to serve on the Federal bench--10 of them.
Well, what does the American Bar Association have to do with this?
Historically, the American Bar Association did its own background
check on nominees for the Federal bench. Where would they go? Well,
they would go in the community. They would go to the judges that this
person has appeared before. They would go to their fellow attorneys.
They would try to find character references, and they would dig deep.
They had some basic rules. You had to have 10 years of experience as
an attorney to even be considered for the Federal bench, and then they
rated people ``qualified,'' ``not qualified,'' ``well qualified,'' and
such.
Over the strong objections of Senate Democrats, eight of the
``unqualified'' nominees proposed by President Trump, in his first
term, were confirmed by Senate Republicans. So even when the American
Bar Association says you are ``unqualified'' to serve on the bench, it
didn't discourage the loyalists supporting President Trump.
Incidentally, under the Biden administration, 235 Federal judges--how
many of them, Durbin--give us the truth here. How many of them were
found ``unqualified''? None. Every one of the 235 were found
``qualified'' by the American Bar Association.
As the former chairman of the committee said, ``Elections have
consequences,'' and I get it. So I understand that the second Trump
administration is going to offer nominees closer to him in political
philosophy. But President Trump seems intent on outdoing himself by
putting forth nominees who are extreme, partisan, and fundamentally
unqualified.
Instead of finding more qualified judicial nominees, Attorney General
Bondi ordered the Justice Department to stop cooperating with the
American Bar Association in rating nominees. She didn't want to run
into the embarrassment that they did in the first Trump term, with 10
of them being found ``unqualified.''

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So she said: The way to solve that problem is not to find a better
nominee; it is to get rid of the American Bar Association. If they are
not going to give grade to these nominees, we don't have to worry about
them being ``unqualified.''
She overturned the practice that had been in place for nearly 70
years, going back to a fellow named Dwight David Eisenhower. Both
Republican and Democratic Presidents have followed the rule. But, now,
the only qualification President Trump looks for in his judicial
nominees--and he says as much--is loyalty: Show me loyalty or get the
heck off the bench.
Look no further than Emil Bove's nomination to the Third Circuit. As
a senior official in the Justice Department, Mr. Bove has done nothing
but cater to President Trump's every whim. It is no surprise that
President Trump said he nominated Mr. Bove because he said he will ``do
anything that is necessary to make America great again.''
For life--judge for life--show me loyalty, and you have got a
position for life.
Mr. Bove personally ordered the termination of Federal prosecutors
who put violent January 6 rioters in prison.
Understand what happened here. Men and women, professional attorneys
working for the Department of Justice, were given assignments: We have
a case we want you to pursue and prosecute. It is this individual. Here
is the FBI background file. Go to work.
It turns out that these people who once had stormed through that door
and went rifling through our desks and aped for photographs, sitting in
your chair, Mr. President, on January 6--as a result of their entering
this building, 5 Capitol policemen died, and 140 were assaulted.
Should they have been prosecuted? You bet. Beat up on a cop, and you
should face the consequences. And they did it, on January 6, in the
name of stopping the election the American people had been involved in
just weeks before.
I was here, sitting in this chair, as the head of the Capitol Police
stood where you are sitting, Mr. President, and told us all: Stay calm.
Stay in your chairs. We are going to stay in this room. This is a safe
room.
He just said: Stay in your seats.
They grabbed Vice President Pence, took him right out that door, and
spirited him off somewhere. But they left us here.
Ten minutes later, the same policeman stood up and said: New
announcement. Leave as quickly as possible. We cannot keep this room
secure.
The Senate of the United States of America--the Capitol of the United
States of America--was being run over by demonstrators and
insurrectionists. They were beating up on the police, smashing their
heads into the wall and between the door.
They were ultimately prosecuted for it. The prosecutors, the
assistant U.S. attorneys who were doing this job, were treated in what
way by President Trump when he got back in office? They were treated
like they were the ones who broke the law. The prosecutors were accused
of wrongdoing.
Well, it, unfortunately, is, in the words of Mr. Bove, a ``grave
national injustice,'' he thinks it is, to prosecute these
demonstrators. He is wrong.
Grave injustice is what happened to the police on that day. When
asked to justify his actions in firing these U.S. attorneys who
prosecuted these insurrectionists, Mr. Bove claimed ``heavy-handed
tactics'' by prosecutors were ``equally unacceptable'' as physical
violence against law enforcement. That is an outrageous and offensive
statement by a man who wants to be a Federal judge for life at the
second highest court in the land.
Since January 7, 2021, there has been an effort by the MAGA faithful
to rewrite the history of January 6, but I witnessed it, and many
others did as well.
The truth is this: The U.S. Capitol was violently attacked by
insurrectionists intent on overturning the 2020 election results.
The truth is this: Five police officers died, and more than 140 were
injured protecting this building, staff, the visitors, and Members of
Congress.
Mr. Bove also led the Justice Department's efforts to strike a
corrupt bargain with New York City mayor Eric Adams. This is an
outrage, what he did. Mr. Bove stated that the charges would be dropped
against Mayor Adams without prejudice so that Adams could ``devote full
attention and resources to . . . illegal immigration and violent
crime.'' In other words, President Trump needed Mayor Adams to do his
bidding on his deportation policy.
In response, two staunch conservatives resigned from the Justice
Department--Trump-appointed, interim U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon and
lead prosecutor Hagan Scotten.
Mr. Scotten wrote to Mr. Bove a quote that will be famous for a long,
long time. Mr. Blumenthal repeated it, but I want to say it as well.
Mr. Scotten wrote to Mr. Bove, who wants a lifetime appointment to the
bench, and said:

I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of
a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it
was never going to be me.

I don't know Mr. Scotten, but I will tell you, his words are
persuasive and compelling.
If that wasn't enough, Mr. Bove showed utter disdain for our courts.
A whistleblower stepped forward, gave his name, and risked his future
to tell us what Mr. Bove had told to the attorneys working on the case
against the insurrectionists. According to this credible whistleblower,
who provided ample documentation to back up his claims, Mr. Bove told
the Department of Justice attorneys that they might need to say ``f
you'' to Federal courts that issue orders this administration doesn't
agree with. That is the most dangerous comment that a person in a
position of authority could make in the executive branch, that they
will ignore the court orders that are issued against them.
Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Joshua Divine to the Federal bench--
34 years old, received his law degree 9 years ago, litigated for 5
years. And beyond his troubling lack of experience, he has taken some
extreme positions.
He calls himself a zealot. He calls himself a zealot when it comes to
anti-choice. This zealotry has been on full display in his role as the
Missouri solicitor general. He has challenged women's ability in his
State to access the abortion drug mifepristone and has undermined the
decision of Missouri voters to codify abortion access in their State
constitution.
Also deeply troubling, Mr. Divine argued in favor of literacy tests
at the ballot box, saying that people who ``aren't informed about
issues or platforms . . . have no business voting.'' Where does that
come from in America? Literacy tests. Where does that come from? It
comes from the era of Jim Crow.
After the Civil War, when African Americans were given citizenship
and an opportunity to vote, they were intimidated in many States when
they tried to. They had to answer questions: How many bubbles in a bar
of soap? What do letters of marque and reprisal mean in the
Constitution?
Those are impossible questions for anyone, including the lawyers and
Members of Congress, and yet off they went. Why did they do it? To
discriminate against Black voters. Well, it turns out Mr. Divine
believes that literacy tests should be restored.
It shouldn't be controversial for anyone to say that nominee has
disqualified himself. The fact that the body confirmed Mr. Divine is
outrageous.
These nominees are just the tip of the iceberg. President Trump is
going to continue to nominate extreme and unqualified individuals
unless the Senate takes a stand.
If a few of the Senators--I am not going to name names--who made
statements about principles and values will stand by their own words
when it comes to the orders of the court, then they will join us on a
bipartisan basis to stop these clearly unqualified individuals.
I urge my colleagues to vote against Mr. Bove and all future nominees
whose only loyalty is to the President and not the Constitution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. KIM. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my strong opposition to
Emil Bove's nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Bove
is unqualified, unfit, and undermines public trust in our justice
system. Every report makes one thing clear: He puts politics

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over justice, loyalty to Donald Trump above all else. We cannot give
someone like that a lifetime appointment.
I rise because more than 9 million people that I represent--the
people of New Jersey--fall under the jurisdiction of the Third Circuit.
This nomination has a direct impact on their lives, their futures, and
their rights. The people of New Jersey deserve better. They have had
enough of corruption and political gamesmanship and what we see so
clearly to be a system rigged for the well-connected and the well-off.
Let me explain why this matters. In times when so many feel the
system is working against them, courts serve as a critical check on
unchecked power. Judges matter because their decisions expand or
restrict basic rights. They shape the fate of immigrants seeking a
better life, influence our economy, and they determine our safety and
future.
The courts should reflect the promise of America--a nation where the
rules apply equally no matter your wealth or connections, where
fairness guides justice. Emil Bove represents the opposite. He is part
of a broken system where loyalty to politics and political power trumps
fairness and the law, where connections and corruption undermine
justice.
Mr. Bove's resume includes work as an assistant U.S. attorney,
prestigious clerkships, experience in some of the world's most powerful
law firms, but that is not why he was nominated. He was chosen for one
singular reason, which is his unwavering loyalty to Donald Trump.
Throughout his career, Mr. Bove has shown he is ethically unfit to be
a public servant. He fired career prosecutors, including those working
on January 6 investigations, simply because they would not follow
politically motivated orders. He openly instructed subordinates to defy
court rulings to continue deporting people without due process and
threatened, fired, and publicly disparaged those who refused. This is
not public service; this is corruption disguised as loyalty.

The pillars of our judicial system are objectivity and independence.
They ensure that justice is blind to politics. But Mr. Bove has shown
contempt for those pillars.
Over 900 former DOJ attorneys have signed a letter urging this Senate
to reject his nomination, calling him unfit and unethical.
The Department of Justice must stand for law, not partisan agendas.
And now we are asked to trust a nominee who has proven willing to defy
the law and undermine the courts themselves. The answer must be no.
Let me address a particularly troubling experience that underscores
the corruption that Mr. Bove represents when he sought to dismiss the
case regarding New York Mayor Adams. This is not just politics as
usual; this is corruption that threatens the integrity of the very
justice system Mr. Bove seeks to join, the kind of dealmaking,
backroom, political gamesmanship that the people of New Jersey are sick
and tired of. And I say this not just as a Senator but as someone who
challenged New Jersey's political status quo in Federal district court
and ultimately before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, this very
court.
Approving this nomination sends a message that corruption and loyalty
to power trumps qualifications and fairness. That is not the future I
want for my children, my State, or this country.
It doesn't have to be this way. That future is in the hands of this
very body, the U.S. Senate. New Jersey and this country deserve better
than Emil Bove. America deserves a justice system it can trust.
Let us vote no on Bove's nomination to the Third Circuit Court of
Appeals.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I oppose the appointment of Emil Bove to
serve on the Federal court.
You know, there are two issues. One for any judge is temperament--
absolutely essential--where that judge has to step back and not be
partisan, has to be fair to all litigants. Emil Bove totally lacks the
temperament to serve on the Federal judiciary under any President,
under any administration.
In 2018, the Federal Public Defender for the Southern District of New
York sent a letter to the Southern District leadership detailing
incredibly detailed complaints from fellow defense attorneys about
Bove. These are people that worked with him in a professional capacity.
This was before Bove was the political figure that he has become. They
described him gratuitously as a person who was vindictive, a prosecutor
version of a drunk driver, and needing adult supervision. It was
because of his conduct towards the people he was working with in the
judicial system.
The reality that we all know is that in the judicial system, fierce
as you may be as a prosecutor, determined as you may be as a defense
attorney, impartial as you want to be as a judge, everyone has to
cooperate to do their job, not interfere with others, and to be
supportive of those who are doing the work with you--your fellow
prosecutors, your fellow defense attorneys. Bove couldn't do that. He
does not have the temperament to serve in a high judicial position.
Second and really most importantly, Bove does not have respect for
the rule of law.
If you are in a litigation situation, as prosecutors are, as trial
attorneys are, as public defense attorneys are, you have an obligation
to serve your client fiercely, energetically. But what you have as a
shared responsibility, no matter which role you have in the litigation
process, the judicial process, is a respect for the rule of law and an
obligation to act in accordance with the ethics that apply to you in
your service.
On June 24, Erez Reuveni, who was a well-respected supervisor--and
this is about the Bove character--who had defended Trump's policies in
his first administration--this is a person who was supportive of many
of the policies that then-President Trump was advocating. He came
forward with a very credible whistleblower claim that Bove advocated
for violating court orders.
Bove reportedly said that the Department of Justice should be
prepared to tell courts whose decisions they did not like to ``f off.''
He said that, and he meant it. That is the truth. And that was
gratuitous but very reflective of the orientation that Mr. Bove has
towards the law, and it is that the law is incidental. His goals and
the goals of his now-client President Trump are the only things that
matter.
That also happened subsequently, just very recently, with the
transfer of individuals to El Salvador in violation of Chief Judge
Boasberg's oral order in J.G.G. v. Trump. That is the case where the
judge gave an order stopping the deportation, and Bove was complicit in
having that plane fly and actually do what was directly in conflict
with the order.
He also, as we know, instructed prosecutors to drop the criminal case
against the New York City mayor Mr. Adams. It was a blatant quid pro
quo.
Bove has been an active participant in political payback against the
January 6 prosecutors and FBI agents who were simply doing their jobs.
By the way, this is so appalling to me. You are a prosecutor. You
know that if a prosecutor is assigned a case in a large office like the
Southern District of New York or in the Washington district, the
prosecutor's job is to prosecute that case.
Well, there were a number of prosecutors who were assigned to
prosecute the January 6 cases, and, as you know, Mr. President, that
included people who came in here and started beating up on cops. That
is what they did. And those prosecutors did their job and were then
fired by Bove--no loyalty to people who had the same job and the same
responsibility as he did.
He also--Mr. Bove--sought the names of all FBI employees who worked
on investigations into January 6. You know, he stated that was part of
an investigation about the weaponization of the FBI against the January
6 rioters.
So he is part of the rewriting, the whitewashing, of the history of
January 6 that is the favored narrative of President Trump.
But bottom line, Bove has made it clear that he works for his
political boss, and that is the President. And the question is not just
about Bove. The question is for us in the Senate who have this real
responsibility. We have our partisan differences. We have our honest
policy differences. But we have a shared responsibility when it comes
to the nomination of a person for a Federal judicial position to
evaluate their qualifications for the job.

[[Page S4612]]

And first and foremost among the qualifications is that that
individual has to be someone who sees as his or her client the
Constitution of the United States and the statutory rights and
obligations that citizens and companies in this country have.
And what President Trump has made very clear--uncomfortable as this
may be to acknowledge for many of us, many of my colleagues on the
Republican side who have to deal with the wrath of a President who
doesn't get everything he wants when he wants it--the reality is that
President Trump himself has made it clear that the people he wants
appointed, that he will appoint to the court, are people who will put
him first, not the Constitution; to put his political whims, his
political desires first.
He has got the right person in Bove, but that is the wrong person for
us to confirm.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, there is a legend about a woman who
finds an injured snake by the side of the path, and she picks it up to
take care of it. She brings it home. She cares for it. She feeds it.
She nurtures it. It heals. She takes it back to put it back into where
she found it. And as she does so, it bites her. And as its venom goes
through her veins and she is dying, she asks the snake: Why did you
bite me? I cared for you. I fed you. I nurtured you. I saved your life
when you were wounded.
And the snake said: It is my nature. You knew that when you saved me.
For many of us, to our colleagues, this is a ``mark my words'' moment
about an individual who will continue to disgrace himself and the rule
of law if we put him on the bench. We know that because, in 6 short
months at the Department of Justice, he has been involved in three
significant instances of prosecutorial misconduct--not little technical
violations of a rule but truly grotesque abuse of a prosecutor's
powers.
Not long ago, my Republican colleagues would have prevented even the
nomination of a character like this, somebody with a lawless character
for the bench.
The mad dash to jam through this nominee, first in the Judiciary
Committee and now on the floor of the U.S. Senate, is a new low for the
way this body handles its responsibility to vet these lifetime
appointments.
Let's go through the prosecutorial misconduct instances. This is a
nominee who told a room full of DOJ lawyers that if the courts didn't
back off on restricting unlawful deportations, they would have to tell
courts--I won't use the word on the Senate floor--``f you.''
We know he said it. We know he said it because it is abundantly
corroborated in realtime communications among the lawyers present who
heard him say it. They talk about the ``f you'' comment in
contemporaneous texts in that very matter. You really don't get--I am
looking at a bunch of lawyers around here--you really don't get better
corroboration than that. That is the corroboration that you take to the
defense counsel and say: Maybe you should think about pleading this
case out.
Why would colleagues think someone who would tell courts ``f you,''
someone who does not believe a judge's rulings need to be followed, is
fit to be a judge?
We are also on solid ground concluding that this character lied to us
about it in committee. He said he didn't recall. That is a heck of a
memory lapse, telling a room full of Department of Justice lawyers that
they should be ready to tell courts ``f you.''
Somehow--somehow--he seemed to know that he would get away with it,
that he would not be forced by the majority to actually answer our
questions.
He also said he never instructed anyone to disobey a court order. Too
cute by half. What he said was: They should be prepared to violate a
court order.
And, by the way, they did. This is all consistent with his lawless
character.
He also cooked up an improper deal in a criminal case against the
mayor of New York where they were going to hang a suspended criminal
prosecution--well-founded and grounded--over the head of the mayor to
assure his cooperation with the Trump immigration agenda in his city.
You don't do that as a prosecutor. That is unimaginably bad abuse of
that power.
We had the corroboration in the first instance. What do we have here?
We have his own DOJ colleague calling this effort a quid pro quo,
calling it an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in
exchange for a dismissal of his case. That was the deal, the
arrangement that was reached.
And that colleague, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern
District of New York, then resigned rather than go through with the
rotten deal.
Not enough corroboration? Trump's border czar Tom Homan admitted the
scheme. He went on FOX News with Mayor Adams and said--I am quoting
here, so excuse some of the language:

If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City
and we won't be sitting on the couch. I'll be in his office,
up his butt saying ``Where the hell is the agreement we came
to?''

The agreement--the agreement to hold back a prosecution in order to
force the mayor to go along with the immigration agenda.
Not enough? OK. This nominee separately tried to confect a fake
criminal investigation to allow an improper seizure of funds that
Congress had appropriated, obligated, and disbursed to the Greenhouse
Gas Reduction Fund.
You don't invent fake prosecutions. In this case, his office, the
U.S. Attorney's Office, said: There is no there there. We can't sign
that pleading.
He drove out the criminal chief. The rest of the lawyers also refused
to sign. The U.S. attorney went in himself, all by himself, just a
political appointee, no Federal prosecutorial experience, no idea what
he was doing. The magistrate judge shot him down.
Each one of those things is a giant red flag in the Department of
Justice, and they all attach to this case.
A principle that prosecutors follow is that you must not publicly
disparage subjects of your investigation. It is enough that you have
the law on your side and the power of prosecution to bring them to
justice. You don't throw on a larding of disparagement. Bove's client
in that matter, the EPA Administrator, made repeated public statements
accusing the fund and its administrators of being ``corrupt'' and
``criminal'' and engaging in ``kickbacks,'' ``theft,'' and ``graft.''
These accusations are defamatory, per se, under the common law.
This person led these truly evil abuses of DOJ's powers. It is his
nature.
Those are the problems with the nominee. Now let's look at the
problems with the process that got him here. First, in the Judiciary
Committee, he was prelicensed to refuse to answer questions. The
committee, the majority, conceded something that Congress has never
conceded before: that deliberative process and attorney-client
privilege overcome our constitutional powers of oversight and advice
and consent.
Senator Kennedy and I noted this in our bipartisan report on
Executive privilege back in 2022. Here is our quote:

Congress maintains that all other components of executive
privilege--

Besides Presidential communications, which was at issue--

that the executive branch recognizes--including
deliberative process and attorney-client privilege--are not
constitutionally grounded and therefore cannot supervene
Congress's oversight authority.

To grease Bove through the committee, they threw all that history out
the window. And having made that astounding concession, they then
didn't even follow the rules for assertions of these supposed
privileges, neither as to their scope where they apply and don't apply,
nor as to what it takes to actually claim them.
These privileges need to be asserted, and the witness never actually
asserted them. He probably didn't actually assert them because as a
lawyer he knows they didn't actually pertain, and he would have been
mocked and criticized for asserting those privileges in this
circumstance.
He knew from the free pass he had been given not to answer questions
that he didn't have to answer, and he didn't have to make the
assertions. With his nonanswers blessed in advance, he hid behind vague
claims of inappropriateness.

[[Page S4613]]

That is not a privilege; that is not a defense.
Attorney-client privilege and deliberative process privilege, even if
they pertain here, don't apply to administrative decisions within a
department. And deliberative process--indeed, any Executive privilege--
does not apply where the allegation is misconduct. We just went through
the three instances of prosecutorial misconduct.
Again, from my report with Senator Kennedy, quoting the DC Circuit
here:

The privilege ``disappears altogether when there is any
reason to believe government misconduct occurred.''

The only Executive privilege that Congress does recognize also
requires proximity to the President. It is not applicable in ordinary
Agency administration, and the President must invoke it, and he didn't.
The Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General even showed up
at the hearing to give committee Republicans the eyeball. The result
was a hearing that more resembled a racketeering from ``The Godfather''
than a nominations hearing from a circuit court of appeals judgeship.
One last point, while this mischief is going on in the Judicial
Committee and on the Senate floor, something else is going on. This is
a two-ring circus, and the second ring is over at the DC Circuit Court
of Appeals where Trump Judges Rao and Katsas, over objection, stopped
the court hearing into Bove's potential contempt in the deportation
cases. Obviously, there in court, under oath, real answers would be
achieved.
The administrative stay procedure those Trump judges use usually only
last days. Justice Barrett recently chided a court for an
administrative stay that lasted 2 weeks. These two Trump judges have
blocked Bove's contempt hearing for 3 months.
If my colleagues keep rubberstamping Trump's lawless nominees, he
will just continue lowering the bar, further degrading the judicial
system.
This has the earmarks of a coordinated play, and I suspect very much
that we have not heard the end of this as facts continue to come out in
future Judiciary Committee investigations and in the contempt hearing
of Judge Boasberg.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, we have an administration that is flouting
the law at every turn. Since being sworn into office, Donald Trump has
signed dozens of Executive orders attempting to do everything from
ending birthright citizenship and eliminating the Department of
Education to invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport individuals
without due process.
In the months since, lawyers defending these lawless actions in court
have been rebuffed time and again by judges across the country,
including judges nominated by Donald Trump himself. Note that. Even
Donald Trump's nominated judges have said you can't keep making these
kind of arguments before me.
So, now, Trump has gone even further by nominating to a lifetime
judgeship a man who makes no secret of his disregard for our courts and
the rule of law. And that man is Emil Bove.
Based on his nomination hearing and a review of his background and
the record before us, Mr. Bove is unfit to be a Federal judge because
of his disregard for the rule of law and his temperament. There are so
many red flags regarding this nominee, as articulated by my colleagues
before me.
Mr. Bove has no respect for the rule of law or the courts that uphold
it. This was made all too clear by a whistleblower, a man who had the
courage to point out certain things about this nominee. This courageous
whistleblower is Erez Reuveni.
Mr. Reuveni was a career attorney at the DOJ before he was fired by
the Trump administration for not lying to the court that the
administration made a mistake in deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El
Salvador. Note this. He was fired because he told the truth to the
courts. He was expected to lie to the court and say: Oh, the Trump
administration did not make a mistake in Mr. Garcia's case.
The facts prove otherwise.
Far from being a rogue partisan, Mr. Reuveni spent 15 years at the
Department of Justice, including during the first Trump administration,
where he received awards for his work defending the administration's
policies in court. Mr. Reuveni shared with the Judiciary Committee that
Mr. Bove, the nominee before us, casually discussed ignoring court
orders at a meeting attended by not just Mr. Reuveni but by a bunch of
other AGs in the Department of Justice.
So while Mr. Bove and my Republican colleagues would like us to focus
on whether Mr. Bove actually directed the government to ignore a court
order at this fateful meeting, that focus misses the point. According
to Mr. Reuveni, Mr. Bove said the Justice Department would need to
consider telling the courts ``f you'' if the court ordered the
administration--the Justice Department--to stop what they were doing.
Neither Mr. Bove nor anyone else has denied the sequence of events.
Mr. Reuveni produced 100 pages of documents and text messages
supporting his statement that under Bove, DOJ lawyers were directed to
prioritize the President's political agenda over their legal and
ethical obligations.
My Democratic colleagues and I tried to ask Mr. Bove about these
revelations, but, unsurprisingly, he refused to answer nearly all of
the questions on these points. As noted, he even cited privileges that
don't even apply to him. So we didn't get much in the way of responses
from Mr. Bove. As for the committee, rather than hold a hearing to hear
from this whistleblower under oath, Republicans on the Judiciary
Committee chose to rush through Mr. Bove's nomination, breaking
precedent by refusing to allow Democrats to even speak on his
nomination in committee.
I am sure people saw that the Democrats on that committee walked out
in protest.
Beyond his disregard for the rule of law, Mr. Bove also lacks the
temperament to be a Federal judge. We expect our Federal judges to be
fair, to be objective. We don't expect them to have political axes to
grind. But that is not what we are going to get with Mr. Bove.
One issue that is particularly important to me is harassment and
abuse of law clerks and court staff by Federal judges. Those with
nearly absolute power, like a Federal judge in their Chambers, can do
great harm to those who work for them. That is why I introduced a
bipartisan, bicameral bill aimed at addressing workplace harassment in
the Federal Judiciary. We know this happens.
So this issue arises with regard to Mr. Bove because of reports that
he was an abusive supervisor at the Southern District of New York. In
other words, he is a supervisor who abuses his power. When questioned,
Mr. Bove confirmed that a group of office leaders recommended to the
U.S. attorney that he be removed as a supervisor of the unit that he
was leading. According to reports, this came after an investigation and
Mr. Bove only kept his job after he pleaded to keep it.
It is, frankly, astounding that these very busy prosecutors in the
office that he was in considered Mr. Bove's behavior so concerning that
they went so far as to investigate his behavior and recommend his
removal. To clarify things, I asked Mr. Bove, in questions for the
record, to send us copies of his personnel file. He refused.
Far from an independent, fairminded jurist, Mr. Bove is willing to
use whatever means he deems necessary to meet the ends sought by Donald
Trump. There is absolutely no question that the reason Mr. Bove came to
President Trump's attention was his complete loyalty to President
Trump, which he manifests clearly. This is a concern. Don't take my
word for it.
I want to show you, Mr. President, this is a letter signed by nearly
1,000--1,000--former DOJ lawyers urging this body to reject Mr. Bove's
nomination. They wrote:

We, the undersigned, proudly defended the rule of law as
attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice. We are all
alarmed by DOJ leadership's recent deviations from
constitutional principles and institutional guardrails.

These almost 1,000 wrote--the letter continues:

Emil Bove has been a leader in this assault. Despite that,
he now stands before you as a nominee for a lifetime seat on
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. . . . It is
intolerable to us that anyone who disgraces the Justice
Department will be promoted to one of the highest courts in
the

[[Page S4614]]

land, as it should be intolerable to anyone committed to
maintaining our ordered system of justice.

They went on to remind us that each of us in this body was elected by
a democratic process anchored by the rule of law and urged us to
protect the rule of law by voting our conscience and rejecting Mr.
Bove's nomination.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter I referred to
be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the materia1 was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

July 16, 2025.
Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin, and Members of
the Senate Judiciary Committee:
We, the undersigned, proudly defended the rule of law as
attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). We are all
alarmed by DOJ leadership's recent deviations from
constitutional principles and institutional guardrails. We
also share a grave concern over the senseless attacks on the
dedicated career employees who are the backbone of the
Department.
Emil Bove has been a leader in this assault. Despite that,
he now stands before you as a nominee for a lifetime seat on
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. We ask that
before the Judiciary Committee votes on this nomination, you
rigorously examine the actions Mr. Bove has taken at DOJ and
the effects they've had on the Department's integrity,
employees, and mission-critical work. It is intolerable to us
that anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be
promoted to one of the highest courts in the land, as it
should be intolerable to anyone committed to maintaining our
ordered system of justice.
Few actions could undermine the rule of law more than a
senior executive branch official flouting another branch's
authority. But that is exactly what Mr. Bove allegedly did
through his involvement in DOJ's defiance of court orders, as
described by former senior DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni in his
whistleblower disclosure--the details of which are supported
by contemporaneous communications between Department
attorneys. Such behavior, if susbstantiated, should not be
countenanced.
As a 15-year attorney at the Department who was promoted
under this Administration, Mr. Reuveni litigated some of the
most divisive cases the Department has ever defended, many
under President Trump. But he knew, as all attorneys should
know, that the ethical requirement to zealously represent
one's client is not absolute; the duty of candor to the court
must always come first. Mr. Reuveni refused to violate that
duty--a choice that cost him his job.
The risks Mr. Reuveni took by later blowing the whistle
should inspire everyone committed to preserving the rule of
law. We all applaud his bravery, and we stand ready to
support any DOJ employee who uses the proper channels to hold
our government accountable.
Even putting aside the information that's surfaced about
internal deliberations involving Mr. Bove, his denial that he
sought to defy court orders strains credulity. Questioned
repeatedly over whether he told DOJ attorneys to consider
saying ``fuck you'' to courts, he mustered only an ``I don't
recall.'' Each one of the undersigned would testify, under
oath, that we have never--and would never--tell a Justice
Department attorney to consider defying a court order.
Moreover, the Justice Department's later defiance of judicial
mandates in the cases where Mr. Bove previewed doing so
further suggests that disregarding court orders was Mr.
Bove's intent all along.
Mr. Reuveni is far from the only DOJ attorney who has faced
unconscionable ethical challenges of Mr. Bove's design. When
Mr. Bove directed prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office
for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and DOJ's Public
Integrity Section to dismiss the case against New York Mayor
Eric Adams, his actions gave the appearance of impermissible
political considerations stemming from President Trump's
immigration agenda. Former SDNY prosecutor Hagan Scotten
encapsulated the problem in his resignation letter: ``No
system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the
carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to
bring them again, to induce an elected official to support
its policy objectives.
Mr. Bove's trampling over institutional norms in this case,
and in others, sent shockwaves through the ranks--cratering
morale, triggering mass departures, and eroding the
effectiveness of DOJ's vital work. Prosecutorial authority
carries profound consequences on individuals' lives and the
integrity of our public institutions; wielding it without
impartiality is a flagrant abuse of that power. Because
impartiality is also a cornerstone of the judiciary, any
failure to exercise it at DOJ must be carefully considered.
Mr. Bove's apparent lack of impartiality was also on full
display when he punished those who pursued justice after the
January 6 assault on the Capitol. Following President Trump's
repeated promises of retribution, Mr. Bove directed the
termination of over a dozen of those prosecutors. He also
called for the firings of eight senior FBI officials who were
involved in January 6-related investigations and sought the
names of thousands more FBI agents for possible ``additional
personnel actions.'' Purging dedicated public servants for
following the law was a betrayal of DOJ's law-enforcement
principles and an affront to democratic values. Because Mr.
Bove oversaw the investigation of January 6 suspects himself
as an Assistant United States Attorney, it was also a
breathtaking act of hypocrisy.
Each of you was elected through a democratic process that,
for nearly 250 years, has been anchored by the rule of law.
But the law is only as strong as the institutions that
interpret and enforce it; foremost among them, the federal
judiciary and the Department of Justice. By elevating those
who've degraded one of those institutions to lifetime seats
on the other, you will have abrogated your duty to ensure
that we remain a nation of laws.
We ask that you vote your conscience only after thoroughly
and honestly investigating Mr. Bove's actions at the Justice
Department, including by questioning current and former DOJ
employees with information relevant to the aforementioned
incidents and others. We also urge you to zealously exercise
your oversight powers to protect the Justice Department
against further attacks.
Thank you for your shared respect for our justice system--
and your consideration of our deep concern for its future.

Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, for all the reasons provided by me and my
colleagues before me on the Democratic side, I urge my colleagues to
join me in defending the rule of law by not putting into a lifetime
appointment somebody who thinks that he can ignore court orders and
certainly not by saying ``f you'' to the courts; that that person not
be confirmed by this body. We need to do our jobs by rejecting this
nominee.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, the Senate this week is considering a
nominee so patently unfit to be a Federal judge, so lacking in the
temperament, integrity, and judgment to serve as an arbiter of the
Nation's laws, that the chorus of opposition has grown deafening and
the facts revealing his unfitness for office are too voluminous to be
ignored.
I am speaking, of course, of Emil Bove, the lawyer whose misconduct
was so egregious, his fellow prosecutors in the Southern District of
New York thought he should be demoted; someone whose management of
cases was so flawed that a Federal judge not only concluded that his
team had misled the court but that it withheld exculpatory evidence.
The court then ordered the case dismissed, and the Southern District
prosecutor's office didn't even bother to try to refile the case. It
was that tainted by Mr. Bove's leadership of that team.
After Bove left the U.S. Attorney's Office under the threat of
demotion, he became one of Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyers,
losing the hush money payment to a porn star case in which Donald Trump
is convicted of dozens of felonies.
Bove, though, turned that loss and his blind obedience to Trump into
a top position at the Department of Justice. And now, for the past
months, it seems like every time there has been an abuse of power at
the Justice Department, Emil Bove either directed it, supervised it, or
carried it out himself.
When Donald Trump wanted to purge the Justice Department of
prosecutors who worked diligently to investigate the January 6
insurrection, Bove was the instrument of his vengeance. When Trump
wanted to purge the Department of prosecutors who proved to juries
beyond a reasonable doubt that the violent offenders who attacked
police officers that day did so to interfere with the peaceful transfer
of power, Emil Bove was there to punish not the criminals but the
prosecutors.
When Stephen Miller and then-FBI Director Nominee Kash Patel worked
to carry out an additional purge of career FBI officials who worked on
the January 6 investigations, Emil Bove was there too.
Earlier this year, when the Trump administration wanted a
justification to freeze grants already approved from the Greenhouse Gas
Reduction Fund and they wanted to trump up some justification--some
rationale for trying to prevent the distribution of these funds--whom
did they turn to? Well, of course, they turned to Emil Bove. He and
then-U.S. Attorney Ed Martin pressured the head of the Criminal
Division for the DC U.S. Attorney's Office to open a criminal
investigation into the fund. But there was a problem. There was no
evidence of criminal activity. There was no probable cause. There was
no predication.

[[Page S4615]]

How do we know this? How do we know the opening of this case or the
threat of opening this case was bogus? Because the Chief of the
Criminal Division in that office resigned rather than comply with this
unethical edict.
When Trump's DOJ sought to dismiss a serious and credible corruption
case against the mayor of New York Eric Adams, who was the one who
ordered career prosecutors to drop the case? That is right, Emil Bove.
Time after time, we have seen career public servants stand up to
abuses of power like this and refuse to obey, leaving careers they
loved at the Justice Department rather than be part of Bove's
perversion of justice.
I served for almost 6 years in the Justice Department. I know the
sense of mission that the lawyers in that Department feel and how much
they love serving and appearing before a court and introducing
themselves on behalf of the United States. It is not a job that people
give up easily or for no reason. I also know that, when put in the
position of choosing to follow their ethics and the law or choosing to
obey a dishonorable and dishonest instruction from a supervisor, yes,
they will resign their posts, and so many have.
Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon was ordered by Bove to dismiss
the indictment against Eric Adams. In refusing, she called it what it
was: an ``improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in
exchange for the dismissal of his case''--in other words, a quid pro
quo.
I just want to underscore for people what this means and how
astonishingly abnormal and unethical this action was.
The Justice Department intervened in a criminal case in New York over
the objection of the prosecutors handling the case, including the
acting U.S. attorney, to dismiss that corruption case against a public
official, not because there was a lack of evidence--they didn't even
try to claim that--not because there was any prosecutorial misconduct--
they didn't even try to argue that--but because he was useful to the
President on his immigration policy. It is an edict from Bove that
says: If you do the President's bidding, we have got your back; we will
make your corruption case go away--a quid pro quo.
Now, interestingly, they didn't want it to go away completely. They
wanted it to go away without prejudice--that is, so they could bring it
back if he didn't do exactly what the President wanted. Anyone who has
ever served in the Justice Department can tell you just how unethical
that is.
Rather than obey those orders from Bove, Acting U.S. Attorney Sassoon
resigned, and many others followed.
One of them said:

I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of
a fool or . . . a coward to file your motion. But it was
never going to be me.

No, it didn't have to be him because it was enough for Emil Bove. He
is there whenever Donald Trump needs someone to carry out his will,
regardless of ethical or even legal considerations. And dedicated
public servants, career prosecutors are standing up, willing to risk
their jobs and willing to risk retaliation by a vindictive President.
Some of those brave attorneys have come to our committees as
whistleblowers. In one case, Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran at the
Department who worked in both Republican and Democratic
administrations, shared with our committee that Emil Bove told DOJ's
lawyers that they would need to consider telling the courts ``f you''
and ignore any such court order that might get in the way of the Trump
administration's strategy of rapid deportation without due process. In
fact, Bove's lawyers at the DOJ would go on to lie to the judge and
violate court orders, prompting the judge to issue an order to show
cause why they should not be held in contempt.
Senator Whitehouse is exactly right: The court of appeals has delayed
that hearing on the order to show cause why those lawyers under Bove's
supervision should not be held in contempt. And my colleagues here want
to rush this thing through. Well, what will they say if the judge finds
that Bove and others at the Justice Department willfully ignored court
orders? What will they say once they have given him a lifetime tenure
on the court of appeals?
During Bove's confirmation hearing, I asked him about his ``f you''
instruction, and he made the dubious claim that he couldn't recall.
Now, that is remarkable. It is not like we are talking about events
that happened 10 years ago. This was, like, 2 months ago, just a few
weeks ago. I think I would remember if I had told other lawyers that we
should say ``f you'' to the courts.
So either he instructs them frequently to say ``f you'' to the
courts, such that he wouldn't remember this particular occasion, or he
is being dishonest with us. But his use of that vulgar injunction was
corroborated by other DOJ lawyers in text messages. So we really don't
need to wonder about this.
As one DOJ lawyer texted another:

Guess it's find out time on the ``f you.''

Well, now it is ``find out'' time for the U.S. Senate, when we find
out whether we are willing to confirm just anybody--no matter how
unfit, no matter how terrible the record, no matter how abundant the
evidence. It is ``find out'' time for the U.S. Senate.
What was Bove's role in tasking the DOJ and the FBI to scour old
Epstein files and flag mentions of Donald Trump? I know my colleague
Senator Booker has tried to find out, and Senator Durbin has tried to
find out. We don't know because Bove refuses to tell us, but we do know
that his fellow criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche--he and Blanche
were the two lawyers who represented Trump in that ``hush money payment
to a porn star'' case. Todd Blanche is now rushing to meet with
Epstein's chief coconspirator in jail. It is self-evident that Blanche
is there to represent the President's personal interests, not the
public's interest, and Bove represents exactly the same problem.
With Bove's nomination, we are about to find out if Republicans are
content to give a man so routinely in defiance of the rule of law a
lifetime job of interpreting it on behalf of millions of Americans.
We wanted to hear from those whistleblowers like Erez Reuveni, who is
just one of the hundreds of public servants who is speaking out, but
Republicans have declined our request for testimony and additional
hearings, even as they have rushed to jam through this nomination for a
lifetime position. Sadly, we will all have a lifetime to regret it.
Like so many of his unfit Cabinet nominees, Donald Trump is daring
Senate Republicans to oppose him. I hope and pray they will because the
pattern is clear: Emil Bove takes orders from Donald Trump, and that is
it. His only merit is blind obedience, not to the law but to the
President, and not just to any President but one who is also a
convicted felon.
So I urge my colleagues to look at Bove's record of disrespect for
the law and reject this dangerous nominee.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I have seen something I haven't seen since
I have been on the Judiciary Committee, which is a complete chorus of
condemnation of a circuit court judge. We have had every single person
express an interest in coming down here from the Democratic members of
that committee to condemn our moving forward at such a rapid pace on
this nomination.
Now, I would love to just leave it there, but there is something that
needs to be even more urgently focused on because, as much as it might
seem that this is Democrat v. Republican, I am very happy to see
already that some Republicans--not enough for us to stop this
nomination, but this will be a bipartisan group of opponents. It is
rare, in this time of fierce partisanship, to see some Republicans
looking at the evidence, looking at what Mr. Bove has said, looking at
what Mr. Bove has done, looking at how he has insulted the very office
that he hopes to hold of a judge and a judge's orders. People who are
looking objectively at the facts are starting to see that this would be
a terrible mistake in a bipartisan way. That gives me some hope that,
with the hours left on the clock, perhaps others, too, will take the
time to understand a few things.
One, clearly, I believe and others, not just Democrats but career
prosecutors, career public defenders--we have seen judges, and we have
seen so many people come forward from both sides of the

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aisle to say this is wrong, that it would be wrong for the Senators to
do this. This is why we are starting to see some Republicans show more
interest and, at least, more than one come forward and say they will
not support this nominee. It is because the facts are so glaringly
clear that this is someone who has no respect for the rule of law, that
this is someone who has shown no temperament to be a judge, that this
is someone who has been condemned for his lack of ethics, who has
withheld exculpatory evidence as a prosecutor, who has been given the
worst Brady violation condemnation from a judge. There are so many
things that are troubling about this individual that, on the face of
it, it is why so many career professionals are coming forward to say
that we should not be moving forward.
The second reason people are having pause is that we are rushing this
nomination before questions are answered. Too many people are moving
too quickly on the other side of the aisle to get this done before
questions are answered, before information is obtained for the record.
This body, which is supposed to be deliberative and is supposed to
advise and consent, should not be moving forward if they are to honor
the obligations that we have.
Let me give the multiple reasons as to why we are moving too quickly
without information on substantive things, which should raise alarms
for all of my colleagues.
We asked to hear the testimony of a whistleblower who came forward
with tangible evidence--texts and emails--showing that Emil Bove
instructed the DOJ's attorneys to ignore a court order if it impeded
Trump's agenda. Bove said ``f you'' to the courts. Republicans on the
Senate Judiciary Committee refused to hold a hearing to meet with this
whistleblower, who is not a Democrat but a career prosecutor. Instead,
we saw the vote being rammed through the committee.
Senator Kim and Senator Blumenthal and members on the Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has oversight on the
question of whether DHS violated a court order, asked the whistleblower
to testify before them under oath. That committee has also not
concluded its oversight. It is just a stunning and alarming fact that
my colleagues on the Republican side have disregarded the credible
account of someone who dedicated 15 years to public service and
jeopardized their career and reputation to come forward at a time when
people who step forward and tell the truth often face real reprisals.
In 2018, many former Southern District of New York prosecutors took
the unprecedented step of alerting Emil Bove's supervisors to his
unethical conduct as a prosecutor, calling him the ``drunk driver of
prosecutors,'' saying that he was reckless and dangerous in the way
that he went about prosecutions. This is an unprecedented step of
former SDNY prosecutors.
Two years later, Emil Bove was responsible for the biggest Brady
violation in the Southern District of New York's history. He withheld
exculpatory evidence, resulting in the DOJ's having to toss out a case
after a guilty verdict. His actions were so egregious that the judge
used them as an example of what a prosecutor should never do. Many of
my colleagues and I on the Judiciary Committee have requested more
information from the Southern District of New York about his tenure. We
still have not gotten it. Yet we are moving forward.
No. 3, finally, after receiving credible information of Emil Bove's
role in the Trump administration's burying of evidence about what is
going on right now--the man who was in the central position to know
what was going on with the Epstein files--we have made legitimate
requests to him about this, and he has not responded. There are so many
questions about Mr. Trump's interest in hiding whatever their files are
and in contradicting themselves. Either there are truckloads of
evidence and lists or there are not, but Emil Bove was the Acting in
the Justice Department, at the time, and now we have even more reason
to question Emil Bove.
Just hours ago, it was revealed that the DOJ told Donald Trump that
his name appears many times in those files. Emil Bove was the top
official at the DOJ, who also happens to be Trump's personal lawyer. We
should know what his role was in reversing course on releasing those
files. It would be unconscionable for the Senate to move forward with
his confirmation with those answers not being provided.
As I told the Judiciary Committee, there is a false urgency around
this nominee. The only reason for this urgency is that the President
wants his loyalists on the Federal bench without facing any more
scrutiny as to what he knows and what his role was. Even without
answering these questions, there is more than enough in his record that
disqualifies Bove from having a lifetime appointment to one of the
courts. But let's go one more--January 6.
Bove's role in the Trump administration's effort to erase the tragic
events of the January 6 attack on the Capitol is disqualifying.
As one of his first official acts, Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people
who attacked this Capitol, including 200 people who violently assaulted
law enforcement officers. Bove was one of the highest ranking officials
at DOJ. He said under oath that he advised the President on these
pardons.
Then he turned from freeing dangerous people convicted of assaulting
police officers from prison to punishing--punishing--the dedicated law
enforcement agents who investigated those cases. Bove wrote a memo
saying that prosecuting those who attacked the Capitol was a ``grave
national injustice,'' so he went after those prosecutors. He fired
those Federal prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on the January 6
investigation. Bove then demanded a list of every single FBI employee
who touched one of those cases and in doing so exposed thousands of law
enforcement officials to potential retribution by the pardoned and
dangerous January 6 offenders. They are now roaming free.
Several of these prosecutors reached out to my Republican colleagues
and wanted to share their concerns, but not one person agreed to meet
with them.
The President can nominate judges to the courts, but--and this is
critical--he can only do so by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate. This is a constitutional duty imposed on this House, and it
requires us, every single Senator, to fully and fairly consider every
nominee.
Willful ignorance does not excuse any of us from our responsibility
to seek the truth. It does not excuse us from our constitutional duty
to provide advice and consent.
I plead with my colleagues: Look at the facts. Give it your scrutiny.
Analyze this nominee. Look at his record.
Emil Bove has shown time and time again his disrespect for the very
office he seeks to hold. For God's sake, we have a whistleblower who
brought testimony, receipts, texts, and emails showing that Bove said--
despite the fact that he denied it in our hearings--``f you'' to court
orders. He withheld evidence that could have helped to release an
innocent person or a defendant. He broke his code of conduct. He broke
his ethics. He advised on the January 6 pardons and then fired the
dedicated law enforcement agents who investigated and prosecuted
violent insurrectionists. And now he has critical information regarding
the Epstein files.
There is a lot of pressure these days to hastily push a person
through who cannot be trusted on the Federal bench. There is a lot of
pressure these days to rubberstamp nominees. There is a lot of pressure
these days to look the other way even though the evidence is clear.
There is a lot of pressure these days. But some of my Republican
colleagues have broken and are standing despite the pressure and are
saying this person does not belong on the bench. I am grateful that
some of my Republican colleagues are standing up and doing the right
thing.
There is a lot of pressure these days. There are a lot of threats.
The President has put enormous pressure on people in the Republican
Party who stand up and do the right thing.
Yet I have seen profiles in courage. In the first Trump
administration, I saw it numerous times. I can tell you their names--
Corker, Flake. I saw my colleagues who, in times of great distress,
stood up when we had a trial here--multiple people said the President
was guilty; who voted against judges who were not fit for the highest
office in the land; who voted against

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nominees for his administration. I have seen time and time again the
courage of Republicans in times of distress.
I don't know of another case I have seen in my 14 years in the Senate
where someone so unqualified for the bench is before us. But somehow,
right now, it just seems to be too few Republicans willing to stand up
with the courage of their convictions to call it like it is, to do
their constitutional duty, to look squarely at the qualifications of
this judge and see what professionals, prosecutors, judges by the
hundreds from both parties have come forward and said to this body: Do
not let him go forward.
There are just a few hours left before our final vote on this
nominee. This is a time for another profile of courage. I am hoping my
Republican colleagues will look at the evidence and join with the
conclusion held by so many patriots in our country and not let this man
get to one of our highest courts in the land.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, as we close this colloquy, I want to
thank my colleagues who have come to the floor: Senators Durbin, Kim,
Welch, Whitehouse, Hirono, Schiff, and now my great friend and
colleague Senator Booker.
To my Republican friends, let me just say that there is ample
evidence on the record already to say no to this nominee. But even if
you disagree, what is undeniable here is the point that Senator Booker
just made and that I made at the very beginning: This record is
incomplete. The questions are unanswered.
Just today, I wrote to Attorney General Bondi about the report and
investigation that was done by the Office of Professional
Responsibility. We have had no access to it. It was done because of a
conclusion by the court in a case before it between 2019 and 2021 in
the Nejad case that criticized Mr. Bove for offering little in the way
of supervision when material was denied to the defendant and the case
had to be dismissed. The extent and scope of that investigation has
never been disclosed. That is just one example of material that we have
a right to see that raises questions that we should insist on being
answered.
That letter almost certainly will never get a response--certainly not
in time for our vote. But my Republican colleagues will be haunted by
those questions. They will be compelled to answer those questions one
day to their conscience because this nominee is different.
This nominee should be rejected.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
next rollcall vote occur.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.