'Checks every box in a bad way': Former federal judge sounds alarm over Trump nominee

Emil Bove – who was President Donald Trump's criminal defense attorney in 2024 — could be confirmed to a powerful lifelong term on the federal bench as soon as this week. Now, dozens of federal judges are urging the U.S. Senate to reject his appointment.

On Tuesday, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace reported on a letter that more than 75 former federal judges sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to Bove's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Former U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner — who presided over cases in the District of Massachusetts for 17 years — said Bove is at the center of multiple scandals, with each individual scandal alone being grounds for disqualification.

The letter Gertner co-authored with her fellow judges pointed out that the former Trump defense attorney, who is now a senior official in the Trump administration's DOJ, was behind the dropping of charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams that was understood to be in exchange for assisting the administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts to crack down on immigration in New York. That prompted longtime conservative U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to resign in protest.

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Gertner also remind Wallace's viewers that Bove was also an architect of the mass firings of DOJ prosecutors who tried the cases of participants in the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol. And a DOJ whistleblower also said Bove instructed employees to disregard federal court orders pertaining to the administration's deportations of immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Gertner pointed out that both Democratic and Republican judicial appointees are calling on the Senate to vote against confirming Bove, arguing that keeping him off the federal bench was a bipartisan endeavor.

"The co-writer of this letter was Judge Michael Luttig, who is an extraordinary conservative Court of Appeals judge," she said. "It takes a great deal for a judges, even retired judges, to step up to the plate and say this is deeply, deeply wrong."

"I have had a role in judicial nominations and selection in Massachusetts. You can't expect someone to be absolutely pure," she continued. "But we have rejected people whose tax returns were filed late. We have rejected people who ... sort of showed themselves to be very much the partisan. It's hard to imagine a candidate that checks every box in a bad way, the way Emil Bove does.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on whether to send Bove's confirmation to the full Senate on Thursday. If the 44 year-old is confirmed to the 3rd Circuit, he would likely serve on the court — whose jurisdiction is over U.S. District Courts in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — for decades.

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Watch the video of Gertner's interview below, or by clicking this link.

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