Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and fellow Democrats walked out of a hearing on Thursday to protest the GOP's advancement of Emil Bove's nomination to serve as a lifetime judge on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats walked out of a hearing on Thursday in protest of their GOP colleagues advancing President Donald Trump's nomination of his scandal-plagued personal criminal defense lawyer, Emil Bove, to serve as a lifetime judge on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Democrats were irate that Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, refused to hear a whistleblower’s testimony accusing Bove of willfully defying court orders that blocked some of Trump's deportations. Grassley instead ended debate and called for a vote to advance Bove’s nomination to the Senate floor.
“This lacks decency. It lacks decorum. It shows that you do not want to simply hear from your colleagues,” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said as Grassley ordered the vote. “This is us simply trying to rush through one of the most controversial nominees we’ve had under this presidential administration.”
And Democratic Sen. Mazie Hironi of Hawaii called the Senate Judiciary Committee a “kangaroo court” as she walked out.
Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont explained why he and his colleagues left instead of casting their votes—which wouldn’t have mattered anyway, given that every Republican voted in favor of Bove’s nomination.
“Senator Grassley violated the rules and refused to allow Senators to speak against Emil Bove's lifetime judicial appointment. So I and every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee walked out of the hearing,” Welch wrote on X.
Emil Bove, President Donald Trump's former personal criminal defense lawyer and nominee for a lifetime federal court appointment
Bove, for his part, doesn't deserve to step foot in a federal court, let alone serve as a lifetime judge on one.
Aside from being accused of willfully defying a court order, Bove also oversaw the pardons of hundreds of Capitol insurrectionists—many of them violent—and then led the charge to purge the Department of Justice of agents and prosecutors who worked to bring those traitors to justice.
Bove also ordered federal prosecutors to dismiss the charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for Adams’ cooperation with Trump's deportation agenda.
And he's even been accused of lying in court.
So it’s unsurprising that hundreds of former DOJ officials and dozens of retired judges have spoken out against Bove’s nomination.
“It is intolerable to us that anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land, as it should be intolerable to anyone committed to maintaining our ordered system of justice,” read a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was signed by more than 900 former DOJ employees.
Related | Trump rewards yet another one of his defense attorneys with a cushy gig
Similarly, several retired judges signed on to a letter declaring that Bove does not deserve to be a federal judge.
"Mr. Bove’s egregious record of mistreating law enforcement officers, abusing power, and disregarding the law itself disqualifies him for this position," the judges wrote.
But that didn't stop Senate Republicans from advancing his nomination—including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who recently claimed that he would never vote for a Trump nominee who supported the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Apparently TACO applies to the rest of the GOP, too.