Is Emil Bove the face of a new MAGA judiciary?

0:00This isn't usually how Senate committee votes go. We'll go to Bovee's nomination. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, point of personal privilege. Mr. Chairman, according to Rule 4 of the committee, we have the right to continue to debate this nomination. There's a lot going on here, so let's unpack it. You're hearing Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Maisie Hirono arguing with the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley. While that's going on, the clerk is calling on senators one by one. And Republicans are voting in favor of advancing the nomination of Justice Department Attorney Amal Bovee to a federal court of appeals.

0:41This continues as all of the Democrats walk out in protest. Why are you doing this? This is outrageous. This is a kangaroo court. That's all we have here, Mr. Chairman. As the drama suggests, Democrats are strongly opposed to Bovee's nomination. In just a few months at DOJ, Bovee has been a player in some of the Trump administration's biggest breaks with norms. The pardoning of January 6th rioters, the dropped prosecution of New York Mayor Eric Adams. There were also charges from a whistleblower that Bovee told subordinates they might have to defy court orders. Democrats wanted the committee to hear from him.

1:19Here's ranking member Dick Durbin. He's ready to stand before you, raise his right hand, take an oath, and testify under oath. What more can you ask about credibility than that? Grassley dismissed the report. I've seen a lot of confirmation fights. What we're witnessing has all the hallmarks of a political hit job. Time for maximum media splash with minimum subsets. And Republicans voted 12 to 0 to advance the nomination. At Bovey's confirmation hearing, Durbin argued that his objections were not about the nominee's judicial philosophy. Elections have consequences, so I expect to see conservative judicial nominees coming from this administration.

2:02Durbin suggested that President Trump didn't pick Bovey for his legal views at all. President Trump cares little about statutory interpretation and the original meaning of the Constitution. He is looking for loyalty. He is looking for fierce retribution. He is looking for someone who will instill fear in his opponents. It seems he has found such a nominee in Mr. Bovey. Consider this. During his first term, Trump appointed scores of originalists to the federal bench, a victory for the conservative legal movement. This time around, the AML Bovey nomination signals Trump may be looking for a different sort of judge.

2:46From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

2:56It's Consider This from NPR. President Trump helped reshape the federal courts during his first term in office, and he relied heavily on the Federalist Society in that effort, which helped him zero in on judges with a conservative, originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Now the nomination's machinery is restarting, and Trump's most controversial judicial nominee is only one step away from the federal bench. I'm joined by NPR's Kerry Johnson for a look at what Emil Bovee could tell us about Trump's approach to judges in his second term. Kerry, welcome. Hi, Juana. So, Carrie, start if you can by just telling us who Emil Bovey is and why his nomination is so controversial.

3:38Well, he's got some pretty strong credentials. He graduated from Georgetown Law School, did a couple of clerkships with conservative federal judges, and then got a job in what might be the most prestigious U.S. attorney's office in the entire country in Manhattan. And, of course, he went on to defend Donald Trump in his various criminal cases. The White House communications director says Emil Bovey is supremely qualified and a man of integrity. He says there's nobody more capable for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. And at his confirmation hearing, Bovee told senators he's been misunderstood.

4:11I am not anybody's henchman. I'm not an enforcer. I'm a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this. But Bovee also ran into some complaints from colleagues and defense lawyers. Right. And if I understand, Carrie, he's also had an outsized role in his brief time at the Department of Justice. Is that right? He's the right hand man to the deputy attorney general, which basically means all the day to day management of the Justice Department, both the big cases and policies. All of that ends up on his desk. And there's been a lot going on this year from firing prosecutors who worked on those January 6th cases to walking away from the corruption case against New York City's Mayor Eric Adams.

4:54A federal judge said the decision to drop that case smacked of a bargain where DOJ would move to dismiss the case and Mayor Adams would help advance Trump's aggressive deportation agenda. 900 former Justice Department lawyers have urged the Senate to vote no on Amal Bovee. I spoke with Stacey Young, who spent 18 years inside the DOJ. She now runs a group that connects people there with legal and ethics advice. By voting to confirm Emil Bovee to a lifetime appointment, they would be doing more than just placing someone problematic on the bench. They would be giving their stamp of approval on everything that's happened at DOJ in the last six months.

5:39And that is simply unacceptable. Carrie, we know that President Trump appointed a whole lot of judges during his first term. So how does Bovee compare? During Trump's first term, Trump confirmed more than 200 judges with help from Senator Mitch McConnell, largely relying on a list the Federalist Society helped create. But Bovee's not a member of the Federalist Society. He's loyal to Trump and close to people in the White House, though. That's what worries Greg Nunziata, who helped advance judicial nominees as a Republican Senate aide. He now works as executive director at Society for the Rule of Law.

6:13I think there are reasons all Americans should be concerned about judges coming to the bench with political agendas and outcome-motivated orientation to judging. That should conserve everybody. It's especially notable that President Trump is breaking with the Federalist Society here because that group has been just extremely successful at stacking the federal bench with very conservative judges, right? That success helped culminate in a 6-3 conservative supermajority on today's Supreme Court. That effort began over a generation ago in law schools, and it continued all the way through Donald Trump's first chairman office, where nominees with conservative track records were closely vetted, their writings were tracked.

6:55The idea was to ensure these very conservative lawyers would stay conservative and avoid the kind of drift that, say, former Justice David Souter and former Justice Sandra Day O 'Connor may have represented. Right. OK, well, I mean, given the fact that the Federalist Society has been so successful, tell us why Trump soured on it. I think there's a simple reason. There are hundreds of cases that have been filed against the Trump administration this year, challenging his policies, his immigration agenda, the efforts to remake the federal government. And the president has really been frustrated with lower court judges who ruled against him, judges that were appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents.

7:33Trump went so far as to attack Leonard Leo, the longtime Federalist Society official, in a social media post this year as he was losing in the lower courts. Trump called him a sleazebag. We'll just point out here that judges are supposed to be independent of the president who appointed them. They're not political actors. Keri Johnson, how do you expect this to shape the judiciary, given the fact that these are lifetime appointments? Now, the Senate has already confirmed Trump's first federal judge. Several more are in the pipeline. There are fewer judicial vacancies now than in Trump's first go-round in the White House.

8:06And there's also some evidence judges may be delaying their retirement so their replacements are not picked by Trump. I mean, there are hundreds of federal judges. Bovee is just one person. So is his confirmation really likely to make a difference in how Trump's policies fare in court? You know, this is a fair point. I've been talking with experts. They tell me appeals court judges sit on panels of three. So any one judge is not going to tip the balance of power. But if and when the president gets a vacancy on the Supreme Court, that nominee could have a lot more influence. It's not clear Emil Bovi would be at the top of Trump's list.

8:41But people in the legal community tell me they think it's a possibility. Trump has been winning a lot this year in the Supreme Court, and that's ultimately where this matters. NPR's Carrie Johnson, thank you. My pleasure. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan. It was edited by Anna Yukononov and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

9:07It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.