The Situation: A Bove the Law

The Situation on Monday considered the wasteland Israel has created in Gaza.

Today, let’s meditate on another wasteland—the United States Senate—a wasteland that humorously flatters itself the greatest deliberative body in the world.

All Senate Republicans save two—Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski—this week voted to confirm Emil Bove III to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

All Senate Republicans save these two voted to do this despite three separate whistleblowers coming forward to allege that Bove had engaged in outrageous behavior in his current role at the Justice Department.

All Senate Republicans save two voted to do this without bothering to hear from the whistleblowers—none of whom was called to testify concerning their allegations.

All Senate Republicans save two apparently didn’t care that Bove ordered a major corruption case dropped in what Justice Department attorneys regarded as a quid pro quo deal with New York Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for policy support on immigration enforcement.

All Senate Republicans save two apparently didn’t care that Bove informed Justice Department lawyers that a planned mass deportation to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act would go forward “no matter what,” which is to say irrespective of litigation or court orders.  

All Senate Republicans save two apparently didn’t care that Bove allegedly informed those Justice Department lawyers that they might have to be prepared to say “fuck you” to a federal court to make this happen.

All Senate Republicans save two apparently didn’t care that Bove testified at his Senate confirmation hearing that he didn’t recall saying this and denied ever telling anyone to defy a court order.

All Senate Republicans save two voted to confirm him despite his individual role in firing career prosecutors who—for purely political reasons—had become suspect in the new regime.

All Senate Republicans save two didn’t seem to care about Bove’s demands for data about which FBI agents worked on Jan. 6-related investigations.

All Senate Republicans save two seemed curiously uncurious about Bove’s history of prosecutorial over-aggressiveness and anger management issues during his service at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

I could fill an entire column with sentences like this. But calling out the slavish abandonment of Senate Republican oaths and their selective attention to things like facts is a bit of a mug’s game. After all, why would anyone have expected any Republican senator save two to behave any differently here than they did? None of them has shown enough honor or integrity to warrant the expectation that they would care a fig about Bove—save for the fact that The Situation demands that they vote for him and pretend he’s a normal, qualified nominee.

And if I’m being honest, I don’t actually think the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is a terrible place to put Bove in storage. The man in his current role is a menace. He has done immense institutional damage to the Justice Department in a short period of time, and while some of that damage would have happened anyway, his particular zeal for the hatchet-manning of it all does seem to have had a catalytic effect.

We think of federal appeals court judgeships as particularly powerful positions, and there’s a sense in which they are, but on the Third Circuit, Bove will never be more than one vote among three. He will always be subject to outvoting, to reversal both by the en banc court and by the Supreme Court. And the Third Circuit, in any event, is not the locus of much litigation involving his boss, from most of which he would presumably be recused anyway.

Confirming corrupt judges—and yes, I am accusing Bove of being corrupt—is never defensible for a senator. But if all of this looking away from Bove’s misconduct merely had the effect of kicking him upstairs into coldish storage on a court of appeals and taking him out of frenetic action in the executive branch, I would oppose it vigorously in public (there is a principle here, after all) but allow myself a private little sigh of relief. 

The problem is that Bove is going places. One must regard him, at this point, as a prohibitive favorite for any Supreme Court nomination Trump gets to make in his second term. Bove is young; he is smart and capable; and he has performed any number of valued services for President Trump, both inside the administration and as his personal lawyer. He is a league slicker and better qualified than Judge Aileen Cannon, the district court judge in Florida who so unsubtly—almost without pretense, really—threw the classified documents criminal case Trump’s way. She is bumblingly corrupt. He, by contrast, is pretty good at the whole thing: The Talented Mr. Bove, one might say.

All Senate Republicans know this. They know they are setting him up for elevation. And all Senate Republicans save two don’t care. The Situation demands it of them, and that is the imperative whose call they obey. 

The problem is containable, they tell themselves; it’s just a Third Circuit judgeship. And the other side is hypocritical about judicial qualifications. And the allegations here are probably overstated or made up. And the president is allowed to dismiss cases and litigate aggressively and fire deep state employees who were probably up to no good. And he certainly is qualified.

And The Situation continues tomorrow.