Angry
Democrats stormed out
of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday as Republicans bulldozed ahead with the controversial nomination of Emil Bove to a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge.
Led by Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Democrats bolted as GOP lawmakers
refused to allow more time
to debate the qualifications of Trump’s ex-personal lawyer, including possible testimony from a whistleblower who says Bove wanted to thumb his nose and judges who rule against the White House.
“Why are you doing this?” Booker said as his colleagues stalked out of the room. “This lacks decency. This lacks decorum.”
Booker made a personal plea to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) but it fell on deaf ears.
“I have respect for you Mr. Chairman, but this is outrageous, this is unacceptable, this is wrong,” Booker said. “I know you know it.”
With Democrats gone,
Republican senators voted 13-0
to advance Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.
Bove now
heads to the full Senate
for confirmation, where he is favored to win since Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.
The nomination is particularly weighty because Bove is considered a possible favorite of Trump to
fill a potential vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court
, for example if either Justice Clarence Thomas or Justice Samuel Alito retire.
Bove’s nomination was controversial from the start because he worked as Trump’s lawyer before the 2024 election.
Trump appointed him to a senior position at the Department of Justice after his win, an unusual step that underlined his intention to eliminate the traditional strict separation between the White House and the Department of Justice.
He came under even more under scrutiny after a fired department lawyer claimed in a whistleblower complaint that Bove said the
administration might need to ignore judges’ rulings
, especially those blocking Trump’s mass deportations.
Bove has also accused FBI officials of “insubordination” for refusing to hand over the names of agents who investigated the U.S. Capitol riot and ordered the firings of a group of prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 criminal cases.
A federal judge also criticized Bove for spearheading the DoJ agreement to drop corruption charges against Mayor Adams in an apparent deal to win his cooperation with Trump on immigration and other political matters.
Bove rejected all the claims of impropriety regarding defying judges’ rulings and denies any “quid pro quo” in the Adams case.
More than
75 former federal and state judges
, both conservative and liberal, this week urged the Senate to reject Bove’s nomination.
