Justice Department official Emil Bove testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that he never told department attorneys to ignore court orders, denying the account of a whistleblower.
Bove, a candidate for a seat on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals which hears cases from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, rejected calls from Democrats and the claims of former DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni that he is unfit to serve on the bench.
According to various sources, Bove proposed ignoring court orders as administration lawyers strategized in March over expected legal challenges to the president’s plan to assert wartime powers to rapidly deport some immigrants.
“I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove told the Senate Judiciary Committee. He added, “I don’t think there’s any validity to the suggestion that that whistleblower complaint filed yesterday calls into question my qualifications to serve as a circuit judge.”
A former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Bove was on President Donald Trump’s defense team for his New York hush money trial and defended him in two federal criminal cases brought by the DOJ.
The White House said Bove “is unquestionably qualified for the role and has a career filled with accolades, both academically and throughout his legal career, that should make him a shoo-in for the Third Circuit.”
His nomination hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee...
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