Legal expert warns of 'scary' scenario if Trump loyalist becomes federal appeals judge
On Thursday morning, July 10, Politico reported that whistleblower and former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Erez Reuveni had "provided Congress with a trove of e-mails and text messages to corroborate his claims" about Emil Bove — the DOJ official and Donald Trump loyalist who Trump has nominated for a seat as a federal judge for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Reuveni alleges that Bove encouraged DOJ officials to defy federal court orders that conflict with Trump's immigration policy — an allegation that Bove vehemently denies.
Because Republicans have a small majority in the U.S. Senate, Bove has a good chance of being confirmed for the 3rd Circuit seat.
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But MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, during a Friday, July 11 appearance on "Morning Joe," laid out some reasons why she finds that possibility troubling. Rubin also addressed the Bove controversy in an op-ed published by MSNBC the previous day.
Rubin, on "Morning Joe," told Willie Geist and Jonathan Lemire of MSNBC, "Emil Bove is also at the center, according to a former immigration lawyer at the Department of Justice named Erez Reuveni…. of the (Trump) Administration's legal strategy with respect to its immigration agenda. Everything from that Alien Enemies Act case that resulted from the administration flying over 100 Venezuelan men under the Alien Enemies Act to El Salvador, imprisoning them there, to the case of Kilmar Ábrego Garcia, the El Salvadoran man who was also on one of those flights and was wrongfully imprisoned at CECOT for several months before he was ultimately returned to the United States on a criminal indictment."
Rubin stressed that in light of Reuveni's allegations against him, Bove should not be confirmed for a federal seat on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
"It's really scary, right?," Rubin told Geist and Lemire. "Because the Senate is being asked to confirm Emil Bove as a judge to a federal appeals court, where his responsibilities are going to be reviewing lower court orders and, where appropriate, upholding them. If you can't follow a court order, the idea that you would then be put in a position to uphold the orders of lower courts themselves is very scary."
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Rubin continued, "And let's talk about that e-mail, Jonathan, if we can… There's been a lot of a lot of press coverage of Emil Bove convening a meeting, according to Erez Reuveni, before the Alien Enemies Act flights took off, and telling people at the Department of Justice, in a small meeting, that they should be prepared to tell the courts 'F you' if the courts were to issue a contrary order blocking them."
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