For Trump, Loyalty — To Him — Matters Most In Legal Picks

By Benjamin J. Hulac
Washington Correspondent For the NJ Spotlight News

WASHINGTON — Under investigation in the spring of 2017, Donald Trump was furious with Jeff Sessions, the U.S. attorney general at the time, for recusing himself from the Justice Department’s probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Investigators were hunting for links between the Trump presidential campaign, Russia and Trump’s decision to fire then-FBI Director James Comey.

Trump wanted loyalty. Other presidents picked attorneys general who defended them, an angry Trump told Sessions, citing Bobby Kennedy during his brother’s administration and Eric Holder during the Obama years.

“This is terrible, Jeff. It’s all because you recused. AG is supposed to be the most important appointment. Kennedy appointed his brother. Obama appointed Holder. I appointed you, and you recused yourself. You left me on an island. I can’t do anything,” Trump said, according to notes an aide jotted down.

In another moment from his first term, Trump said he wanted to be able to tell the attorney general “who to investigate,” according to a federal inquiry.

The Bove nomination

Now in his second term, Trump has continued that pattern of demanding loyalty, placing political allies — primarily lawyers who have defended him in personal court cases — in critical law-enforcement and judicial positions, including a pair in New Jersey.

Emil Bove, the top deputy to Todd Blanche — the No. 2 role at the Justice Department — is the most recent choice.

Trump nominated Bove last week to become a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Given its jurisdiction over Delaware, where scores of companies are incorporated, the circuit is known for a heavy load of cases about corporate disputes.

There are two vacancies on the court: one in New Jersey and one in Delaware. Bove was picked for the New Jersey seat, teeing up a potentially grueling Senate confirmation fight over the lifetime appointment, with Democrats expected to mount unanimous opposition.

Former President Joe Biden nominated Jersey City trial lawyer Adeel Mangi last year for that spot.

Republicans and some Democrats from swing states sank Mangi’s nomination while a conservative interest group called the Judicial Crisis Network ran a public relations campaign against Mangi.

Bove’s most-watched move

In his most-scrutinized public move to date, Bove pushed to drop the federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, accused of a bribery scheme.

After federal prosecutors resigned in protest in February, Bove argued the case for dismissal alone. Bove had argued for the case to be dismissed, writing in a memo to federal prosecutors overseeing it that, “There shall be no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps prior to that review, and you are further directed to take all steps within your power to cause Mayor Adams’ security clearances to be restored.”

Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, has said without evidence that U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and other New Jersey Democrats including Gov. Phil Murphy, are guilty of corruption.

Before joining DOJ, Bove worked national security cases in New York, went into private practice and was on Trump’s legal defense team last summer, when Trump was found guilty of breaking the law to conceal a payment to an adult-film star to win the 2016 race.

Democrats have accused the Trump administration of dropping the charges against Adams in exchange for support of the U.S. government’s immigration agenda.

Other Trump loyalists

Other members of Trump’s legal team on that case and other lawsuits are sprinkled around his administration.

Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, has said without evidence that U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and other New Jersey Democrats including Gov. Phil Murphy, are guilty of corruption.Habba, who has not been formally nominated to the U.S. attorney post and because of that can avoid the Senate confirmation process, is leading the criminal prosecution of Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th) over McIver’s involvement in a scrum last month outside an immigration detention site in Newark.

Trump names his former lawyer as interim US attorney for NJMcIver and two other Democratic members of Congress have decried the charges as politically motivated and not based on facts.

Todd Blanche, now deputy attorney general and the librarian of Congress, worked with Bove in private practice in New York. And D. John Sauer, who represented Trump in multiple federal criminal cases last year, is the solicitor general, responsible for arguing the U.S. government’s side at the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I’ve known Emil for years and his dedication to this country, along with his integrity and brilliant legal mind will make him an excellent judge,” Blanche wrote on social media. “Well earned, my friend!”

In a joint statement, New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, called the Bove pick ‘deeply troubling.’

In defense of Trump, Sauer argued in one of those cases that a president could order SEAL Team 6, the military group known for killing the terrorist Osama bin Laden, to assassinate a political opponent and not be prosecuted, unless Congress impeached him first.

Other Trump loyalists in the federal legal orbit include former FOX News host Jeanine Pirro, now interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was an attorney for Trump during his first impeachment trial.‘Deeply polarizing’

In a joint statement, New Jersey senators Booker and Andy Kim, a Democrat also, called the Bove pick “deeply troubling.”

“We had hoped to find a pick that would inspire broad-based confidence and support, but this is a deeply polarizing choice,” the senators said in part. “The people of New Jersey deserve a federal judge that will observe judicial independence and work to preserve and secure justice for all. Based on his record, Emil Bove will not do that.”

For district court nominees, Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds confirmation hearings on judicial picks, has agreed to uphold what is known as the “blue-slip” process that allows the two home-state senators to write a response about the nominee.

Bove is ‘the consummate loyalist. He is full-on Trump.’ — Carl Tobias, professor of law, University of Richmond

The document, a blue-colored form, is then sent back to the chairman. If the response is positive, the nominee proceeds. If the slip is negative or not returned, the nominee, in general, would not proceed.

This tradition started in 1917, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, and applied to both district court judges and circuit court judges.

During Trump’s first term, the committee chairman ended the blue-slip method for circuit court judges, a practice that continued through the Biden administration.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News that judicial picks, in particular for circuit court positions, have grown increasingly partisan in recent years.

Under Biden, there was a push to diversify the judicial ranks beyond gender, legal background and ethnicity and move away from the traditional judicial track of prosecutors and lawyers from big law firms.

“They are increasingly drawn from the ranks of partisans on both aisles,” Tobias said.

Fitting the mold

Now that Trump is back, the theme seems to be loyalty, Tobias said, and Bove fits that mold.

“To me, he’s the consummate loyalist,” said Tobias, who tracks federal nominees. “He is full-on Trump.”

Bove’s work on the Adams case is particularly worrisome, Tobias said. “I think that is really the centerpiece of my concerns,” he said, adding that Bove has also pushed out Justice Department staffers and sought to weaken DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which works on public corruption cases and enforcement. “At main Justice, he’s also wrought havoc.”

The Public Integrity Section helped secure the bribery conviction of former New Jersey senator Bob Menendez.

Bove’s confirmation hearing will likely be “incendiary,” Tobias said, noting that Booker is on the committee. “That’s going to be the showdown.”