Well over 300 federal, Article III judges across the country are former federal prosecutors. They have been nominated by Democratic and Republican presidents in larger numbers than any other group of lawyers. And yet I cannot recall such fierce and widespread opposition to a former prosecutor’s nomination — not just from a range of ideological backgrounds, not just from the legal community generally, but from more than 900 former Department of Justice attorneys and former judges — until the nomination of Emil Bove.
Bove is a former Southern District of New York prosecutor-turned Donald Trump defense lawyer, now serving as the principal associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, and previously as the acting deputy attorney general. He has been nominated by President Trump for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote this week on whether to advance Bove’s nomination to the full Senate. Since his nomination, former federal prosecutors and judges have been ringing alarm bells in unprecedented ways and numbers opposing his nomination.
This is a preview of Mimi Rocah's latest column. Read the full column here. |
