President Donald Trump’s nomination of Emil Bove for an open seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is a Trump 2.0-era conservative Rorschach test. On the one hand, one could be inclined to make like a certain well-known Zillow aficionado and wet the proverbial bed over the president’s tapping of a “DOJ henchman” for a coveted federal appeals judgeship. On the other hand, one could soberly recognize that a lot has changed since the bed-wetters helmed the Republican Party’s judicial nominations apparatus.
Trump learned a thing or two during his years in the political and legal wilderness—the Biden-era interregnum in which the maestro of Mar-a-Lago overcame everything from partisan lawfare to an assassin’s bullet. This time is different. “The times they are a-changin’,” Bob Dylan once crooned. Indeed, they are—and there’s no better example than the always-fraught areas of judicial nominations. Trump is already off to a very strong start when it comes to his nascent second term judicial nomination slate, and Emil Bove is the perfect nominee to continue the momentum.
As for the bed-wetters: They can hop aboard this train or continue to shout aimlessly into the abyss. The choice is theirs.
Let’s talk about Bove. Mr. Zillow’s lead gripe against the sitting principal associate deputy attorney general of the United States seems to be that he has acted aggressively and assertively to advance his bosses’ priorities. Bove’s critics would have us believe that the Trump Department of Justice’s dismissal of the late Biden-era prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams is the worst thing to ever happen to American law enforcement, and that Bove’s involvement in advancing his bosses’ wishes is disqualifying.
Give me a break. Reasonable minds can disagree on the merits of the Adams saga, but it should be unobjectionable to note that Bove is not a principal in the matter. He is merely an agent—as in, he simply executes the priorities of Attorney General Pam Bondi and, above her and most important, President Trump himself. Do the bed-wetters believe in unitary executive theory—the commonsense originalist assertion that the president and the president alone wields the “executive power” of the United States—or not? If they do, then this is a nonissue.
Bove himself is also demonstrably qualified for the task of joining the federal bunch. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 2008, after which he clerked for judges on both the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Heck, he even has bipartisan street cred: He was a long-standing assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, and was originally tapped during the Obama presidency by well-known Democrat prosecutor Preet Bharara.
Some partisan hack! How, exactly, is Bove then a MAGA “henchman?” The mind reels.
As one of Donald Trump’s lead criminal defense lawyers during the height of the Biden-era legal persecution of the regime’s chief political rival, Bove ably served his client. Among other innovations, he led the charge with the astute legal argument that the Constitution’s Appointments Clause did not countenance the illegal appointment of so-called “Special Counsel” Jack Smith (speaking of actual henchmen!). That is exactly the sort of bold, fearless, courageous constitutionalism we now need on the federal bench.
Above all, Bove has shown throughout his career that he doesn’t care what the critics say or think about him. “Walk toward the fire,” the late Andrew Breitbart once said, and “don’t worry about what they call you.” It’s good advice—and Bove embodies it. He will be the perfect Trump 2.0-era judge—someone who won’t back down from a fight, no matter what. So let the old-timers vent and navel-gaze. Frankly, no one cares. The Senate should confirm Emil Bove and set this well-oiled Trump 2.0 judicial nominations apparatus off to the races.
Josh Hammer is senior counsel for the Article III Project, host of "The Josh Hammer Show," and author of the new book, Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West (Radius Book Group).
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