ICYMI: The Senate Moves Ahead With Bove's Judicial Nomination

0:29You're listening to the 1A podcast. to him against criminal charges, lawsuits, and in public. But one of the president picks for the federal bench has legal experts, a lot of lawmakers, and at least one whistleblower sounding the alarm. Here's New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker. When we were in the majority and listened to my colleagues' arguments, listened to their passionate statements, and then we voted. This is not that. This is us simply trying to rush through one of the most controversial nominees we've had under this presidential administration. The Senate voted on Tuesday to begin considering former Trump defense attorney Emil Bove for a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals judge for the Third Circuit.

1:10Bove is already a senior Justice Department official and in that role is already under scrutiny for allegedly urging DOJ officials to defy court orders to advance Trump's immigration agenda and a lot more. Democrats stormed out of a hearing that sent Beauvais's nomination to the Senate floor last week. Several Republicans have voiced concerns about the pick, with at least one vowing to oppose Beauvais's nomination. After the break, Glenn Thrush of The New York Times joins to tell us more about Beauvais and why he might be the most divisive Trump nominee yet. For all the latest on the news, visit npr.org or tune into your local member station.

1:56Hi, Glenn. Hi, great to see you. So Glenn, people may have heard of Emile Bove already. Where did he defend President Trump as one of his personal attorneys? So Bove was part of the criminal defense team. His boss, Todd Blanche, is now his boss at the Justice Department, the number two official, in both the Miami and the Washington federal cases, but also in the New York criminal case. And who was he before he began working for Donald Trump? Well, that's where this gets really interesting. Beauvais was a very well-respected, very aggressive prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office. He worked on national security cases.

2:41He was generally well regarded as both a supervisor and the lead in a lot of high-profile cases, but he also had a reputation, particularly among defense lawyers, for being really tough, at times really nasty. And there had been some accusations, none of them rising to the level that's serious enough for disciplinary procedures, but accusations that he had at least flouted certain professional standards. All right. Well, let's talk about that professional style more recently at DOJ. Bove has been in the Justice Department as acting deputy attorney general since Donald Trump took office. I say acting.

3:20That means no Senate approval just slotted into that job. Glenn, what has that time at DOJ for Emil Bove looked like? So this was the first three to five weeks of the administration before Attorney General Pam Bondi or Todd Blanche were confirmed. Um, Beauvais was essentially running the Justice Department. Beauvais ran the department in a way that no predecessor really ever has. He oversaw this massive wave of forced retirements, outright firings, and these are of career prosecutors who had not been accused of any wrongdoing. Sometimes it was because they were associated with the January 6th investigation.

4:01Sometimes it was because they occupied positions that rivaled the power of Trump political appointees. And the thing that really came to a head was the Eric Adams case. There was a decision in consultation with White House officials and Adams' own legal team to drop the bribery case against Eric Adams. At a time when Adams was essentially lobbying Donald Trump to have the charges dropped and making all kinds of promises to the White House that he would participate enthusiastically in their immigration roundup. This blew up in public. The acting U.S. attorney in New York City and a couple of other high associates resigned rather than go ahead with dropping these charges, which had been accumulated over the past couple of years.

4:53And Bove himself had to appear in court to pull these charges back. It was arguably thus far before the Epstein crisis, one of the most extraordinary actions taken by anybody in the government. And it really labeled Bove as being this Trump enforcer. And we should say, Glenn, I mean, Trump administration DOJ lawyers said openly in court that Eric Adams' corruption charges should be pulled because they need him in place to help enforce Donald Trump's immigration agenda. 100 percent, Todd. And also in these court papers, they admitted just openly that the withdrawal of these charges were not on the merits.

5:34They made all kinds of wild accusations accusing the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney Damian Williams of attempting to pad his political career with no evidence whatsoever that it impacted the Adams case. and all the line prosecutors. And I should say, the acting U.S. attorney at the time who refused to execute Beauvais' order is a Republican who is now working at the Manhattan Institute in New York, which is, you know, a conservative think tank. Well, let's talk about the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the lifetime judgeship that Donald Trump has nominated Emil Beauvais to sit in. His confirmation hearing was fiery.

6:19Emil Beauvais had this to say in his own defense. in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I respect this process, and I'm here today to address some of your questions about those decisions. But I want to be clear about one thing up front. There is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media. I am not anybody's henchman. I'm not an enforcer. But then there was this, Glenn, when Bove was asked by Senator Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat, about what a whistleblower said about courts who were ruling against Donald Trump's deportations of migrants to El Salvador and elsewhere. In the complaint, it says Beauvais stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts, f*** you, and ignoring any such court order.

7:09Did you say anything of that kind in the meeting? Senator, I have no recollection of saying anything of that kind. And to the extent I use the... Wouldn't you recall, Mr. Bovee, if you said or suggested during a meeting with Justice Department lawyers that maybe they should consider telling the court, f*** you, it seems to me, that would be something you'd remember unless that's the kind of thing you say frequently. Well, I've certainly said things encouraging litigators at the department to fight hard for valid positions that we have to take in defense of our clients. And if you frequently suggested that they say f*** you and ignore court orders, Is that also something you frequently do such you might not remember doing it on this occasion?

7:50No. And as I explained, I have never directed. So did you or did you not make those comments during that meeting? Glenn Thrush, what's going on here? So the lawyer we're talking about, Erez Ruvani, defended initially the Justice Department in the Abrego Garcia case and said in open court the reason why he was deported was due to sort of an administrative error. He was then told to walk that back, and then this situation occurred, according to Ruvani. I reported that shortly after Ruvani said this in court, that he was fired and his supervisor was transferred. The supervisor was subsequently reinstated.

8:32Ruvani then left the department and put together essentially what amounted to a whistleblower complaint in which he made these allegations. But more importantly, everything that Ruvani said about Beauvais' behavior, with the exception of the very colorful description that Senator Schiff provided, is consistent with the way Beauvais has acted and consistent with other episodes in which Beauvais essentially told people, it's my way or the highway. And I should say— But Glenn, it's more than my way or the highway for somebody who's going to be in a circuit court judgeship. It's, hey, defy the court order.

9:14When the court makes an order, you don't have to listen. That's sort of where this all lands, right? I'll tell you where it lands. It lands in a philosophy. Beauvais has an underlying philosophical principle that manifested itself when he was a criminal lawyer for Trump and manifested itself in DOJ. And that is Article 2 of the Constitution, which gives the president expansive executive powers, should be pushed to the absolute wall. And so that's a good transition because, as we have seen, the Supreme Court under John Roberts has taken a maximalist position on executive power. And you are inserting into the bench at this point.

9:58And your listeners should know that an appellate court position is an enormously powerful position. It's not an obscure job. It's one of a handful of jobs that's often considered a stepping stone for a Supreme Court appointment, by the way. And I believe there are some in the White House who have it in their mind that after a year or two, Bove, in the waiting days of the Trump administration, if an opening came about that they would appoint him, I would at this point very much doubt that he would be able to surmount opposition to him. But Beauvais has a view of an extremely powerful executive under Article 2.

10:39Another thing about this judicial appointment, highly unusual development is the Federalist Society, which has been working hand in glove essentially with the Trump administration on this remarkable inrush of conservative activists to the bench that we saw in the first term. and accelerating in the second term, did not choose to endorse him, principally because he does not have, A, any bench experience, B, any record besides what I've just described of staking out principles that are in alignment with their conservative agenda. This is a highly unusual pick. So Glenn, one Republican voted against Bove in procedural votes in the Senate.

11:21He hasn't had full confirmation vote yet. What's next? This could occur as early as this week on the floor of the Senate, what is known as a cloture vote, Todd, I'm sure you're familiar with it, in which essentially it's the preparatory vote to close debate so you can't filibuster it. And after that, there'll be a floor vote. That was New York Times correspondent Glenn Thrush. Glenn, thanks for being here. Thank you. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. PR. I'm Todd Zwilich, in for Jen White. Thanks for listening. This is 1A.