Democrats Slam Trump Nominee To NJ Circuit Court, Accuse Him Of Perjury

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

WASHINGTON – A high-ranking Justice Department official nominated to be a federal judge in New Jersey repeatedly lied to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including about defying court orders, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and other Senate Democrats said.

Emil Bove denied that federal prosecutors dropped criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in order to get Adams to help the Trump administration carry out its immigration agenda.

“The suggestion that there was some kind of quid pro quo is just plain false,” Bove said during his confirmation hearing Wednesday, when Republicans came to his defense.

Bove also denied he would not follow court orders and denied that he fired Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents for political reasons, including people who prosecuted the domestic terrorists who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Pointing to public records, statements from attorneys who worked with Bove and a recent whistleblower report that threatens to derail his nomination, Democrats said Bove would make a partial and unfair judge.

Loyal to Trump

Bove is one in a string of attorneys with close allegiance to President Donald Trump, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney Todd Blanche and acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba.

All have served in some capacity as personal attorneys to Trump, who then tapped them for jobs in his second administration.

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.

Bove was picked for a New Jersey seat on that circuit court, a lifetime appointment.

What happened with NYC mayor?

Much of Wednesday’s hearing centered around the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the prosecution of Adams, the New York City mayor, who was charged last year with federal corruption charges.

Bove pushed to drop the charges against Adams, ultimately arguing in court the case for dismissal on his own after no other prosecutors would join him.

After the hearing, Booker said he thinks Bove ‘actually perjured himself on numerous occasions.’

He wrote in a February memo to federal prosecutors overseeing the case 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.”

Bove denied any political horse-trading about that case, a claim Democrats found hard to believe.

“Everything here smacks of a bargain,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut.

A federal judge in April dismissed the case against Adams, New York’s mayor since 2022.

Republicans defend Bove

Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, defended Bove, dismissing “breathless claims” from Democrats and citing Bove’s time as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and later an attorney in private practice.

Bove told people who worked for him at DOJ that he was willing to ignore federal court orders to implement Trump’s hardline immigration policies, according to a whistleblower report made public this week.

The account, filed by Erez Reuveni, a former DOJ attorney who was fired in April, describes an explosive meeting in March when Bove allegedly detailed how the administration would soon fly immigrants out of the country.

According to Reuveni, Bove mentioned “the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could” happen.

“Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘f— you’ and ignore any such court order. Mr. Reuveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned, and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in the room. Silence overtook the room,” Reuveni’s filing reads.

Reuveni was fired from his government job in April after he told a judge in Maryland that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an undocumented immigrant, was deported to El Salvador in error.

A nonpartisan whistleblower protection group called the Government Accountability Project is representing Reuveni.

Booker’s skepticism

In his window to question Bove, Booker mentioned allegations from a group of attorneys who had worked with Bove that Bove was frequently an unprofessional and unethical lawyer.

Those attorneys wrote supervisors of Bove in 2018, Booker and other Senate Democrats said in a letter they sent this month to Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, where Bove once worked.

Bove dismissed his public image as a ‘wildly inaccurate caricature.’

“He’s a prosecutor version of a drunk driver — completely reckless and out of control,” one lawyer said of Bove. Another said he “seems totally hung up on a power trip.”

These descriptions from 2018 match with accusations against Bove now, Booker said.

“It shows a pattern of behavior,” Booker said. “The allegations align with reports about your abuse of power now at the DOJ.”

After the hearing, Booker said he thinks Bove “actually perjured himself on numerous occasions.”

Lifetime judicial appointment

Sen. Adam Schiff of California told reporters he wants to see the notes of the meeting described in the whistleblower report when Bove is said to have cursed about defying court orders.

“We should see those notes and determine who’s telling the truth,” Schiff said. “Either he says it a lot,” he said, “or he’s lying to us today.”

Bove dismissed his public image as a “wildly inaccurate caricature.” He said, “I’m not anyone’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer.”

Democrats zeroed in on Bove’s involvement in dismissing staff who worked on the prosecution of more than 1,500 people who were charged with breaking federal law in attacking the Capitol four years ago.

Mike Romano, a career DOJ official, now outside of government, worked on some of those cases.

“I have real concerns about whether he was lying to the committee,” Romano, former deputy chief of the Capitol siege section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, said in an interview Wednesday with NJ Spotlight News. “He shouldn’t be rewarded with a lifetime judicial appointment.”

Show of force

At one point during the hearing, Bondi and Todd Blanche, the No. 2 official at DOJ, walked into the hearing room with a phalanx of police officers and other security staff; they left near the hearing’s end.

“They’re being here is for one reason only: to whip the Republicans into shape, to make sure they toe the line,” Blumenthal said.

University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias agreed, calling their appearance “troubling.”

“It seemed like their presence was intended to send a message that the DOJ leaders were watching on Trump’s behalf to be sure that neither Bove nor GOP senators [were] out of line,” Tobias said by email.

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, which has not rejected any of Trump nominees that were formally chosen.

Nominees can be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the Senate and Vice President JD Vance can break tie votes.