[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 130 (Tuesday, July 29, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4807-S4808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Vote on Bove Nomination

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Will the Senate advise and 
consent to the Bove nomination?
  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty).
  Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Hagerty) would have voted ``yea.''
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 49, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 448 Ex.]

                                YEAS--50

     Banks
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Britt
     Budd
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Curtis
     Daines
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Husted
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Justice
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Marshall
     McConnell
     McCormick
     Moody
     Moran
     Moreno
     Mullin
     Paul
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Rounds
     Schmitt
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Sheehy
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Tuberville
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--49

     Alsobrooks
     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt Rochester
     Booker
     Cantwell
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Fetterman
     Gallego
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Markey
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schiff
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Slotkin
     Smith
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Hagerty
       
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the 
President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The Democratic leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I want to be very clear about what 
Senate Republicans are doing.
  Tonight, Senate Republicans vote to put Emil Bove--a January 6 
sympathizer--on one of the highest courts in the country. They reward a 
man--credibly accused of wanting to lie to judges--with a black robe 
and a gavel of his own. And they are confirming him for one reason 
only: Mr. Bove is loyal to Donald Trump. Therefore, Donald Trump wants 
him on the bench. The calculus is as simple as that--as simple as that.
  It is unfathomable that, just over 4 years after the insurrection at 
the Capitol--when rioters smashed windows, ransacked offices, and 
desecrated this Chamber--Senate Republicans are willingly putting 
someone on the bench who shielded these rioters from facing justice, 
who said their prosecution was a grave national injustice.
  To my colleagues who were here on January 6 and who are now putting 
him on the bench, shame on you. To confirm Mr. Bove is a sacrilegious 
act against our democracy, a deep violation against the spirit of our 
oaths of office.
  But this is not just about January 6. Mr. Bove has been accused by 
multiple whistleblowers of telling DOJ lawyers to intentionally mislead 
judges about the administration's policy. Mr. Bove denied these claims, 
but we have text messages, emails, and other documents saying 
otherwise. Recently, another whistleblower has come forward, sharing 
evidence with Senators, suggesting Mr. Bove misled the Judiciary 
Committee during his sworn testimony.
  Since it seems very likely Mr. Bove lied to Senators, he never should 
become a Federal judge, but Republicans

[[Page S4808]]

are rushing Mr. Bove through tonight, hoping the American people aren't 
paying attention. That includes the Judiciary chairman, someone who 
prides himself on standing up for whistleblowers but who rushed the 
process through in committee without fully vetting this nominee and 
without getting to the bottom of the facts underpinning these grave 
accusations.
  Honestly, how have Republicans allowed the bar to fall so low--so 
dismally low--that they would confirm someone accused of lying to 
judges to the bench without turning over every stone and examining 
every lead before making this decision?
  How have our Republican colleagues forgotten the horrors of January 6 
so soon that they would let Mr. Bove--one of the great defenders of the 
insurrectionists--sail through this Chamber?
  This is a dark, dark day, a dark vote, and a dangerous nominee 
Republicans are confirming.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I want to thank Senator Schumer, the 
Democratic leader, for his words.
  This is a really tough moment for me, not just because this is in New 
Jersey. This is someone who has had something I have never seen 
before--hundreds of judges, hundreds of Federal prosecutors and Federal 
public defenders from both parties come forward, saying that Emil Bove 
should not be on the Third Circuit as a judge for a lifetime position; 
not only that, but that his temperament of using vulgarities to show, 
it is claimed, that folks should disobey--that the Trump administration 
should disobey--court orders disqualifies him from being on the bench. 
That is one thing that bothered me.
  The other thing is the fact that he has had some of the worst ethics 
violations of any judge I have seen come before the Judiciary Committee 
in holding back exculpatory evidence when he was a prosecutor. He was 
called by former prosecutors and former defense attorneys the drunk 
driving version of a prosecutor--reckless and dangerous.
  Then, finally, what was the ultimate frustration was we saw a 
whistleblower come forward who had impinged his testimony with 
receipts, but there were other whistleblowers trying to come forward 
who were afraid for themselves because of this climate in which people 
who stand up and speak the truth are often targeted and attacked. 
Contrary to what my colleague was saying on the floor, their lawyers 
were trying to get somebody in the Republican Party just to listen to 
the evidence, and no one wanted to even listen.
  This is a sad day for our democracy. This is a sad day for the 
judiciary and a sad day for the U.S. Senate, whose constitutional 
obligation is to advise and consent, to look at all of the evidence, 
especially when you have whistleblowers standing up with courage and 
wanting to speak the truth--not even to listen to it. We saw those 
tactics in the Judiciary Committee: not wanting to have debate, not 
wanting to have a discussion, rushing this nominee through as quickly 
as possible to this floor for a vote before any more evidence could 
come out before another 200, 300, 400 judges or prosecutors could come 
out with damning indictments of this man's qualifications.
  This is a very unfortunate day for the U.S. Senate, a very 
unfortunate day for the State of New Jersey, and a very unfortunate day 
for the Third Circuit. I am expressing my deepest disappointment in 
this body in its abdication of its responsibilities.

                          ____________________