Congress

Senate confirms Emil Bove to Third Circuit, as Dems fail to thwart Trump pick

Published

11 months ago

July 30, 2025

Emil Bove, President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, has been confirmed to a lifetime seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals — the culmination of a tumultuous campaign from his detractors that ultimately fractured his support among the Senate GOP.

The Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Bove, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska defecting from the rest of their party to join all Democrats in opposing.

Bove was plagued by reports of whistleblowers alleging that he recommended the administration ignore court orders that would disrupt Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda. His nomination became a flashpoint battle for Democrats, who argued the current principal associate deputy attorney general had made clear he valued fealty to the president over the law and was therefore unfit for the federal bench.

“Look at his record: Emil Bove has shown time and time again his disrespect for the very office he seeks to hold,” said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), pointing to the whistleblower’s allegations, during a recent speech on the Senate floor. “I don’t know of another case I have seen in my 14 years in the Senate where someone so unqualified for the bench is before us.”

Booker was among Bove’s chief antagonists, with New Jersey being among the states from where the newly-confirmed judge would hear appeals — along with Delaware, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands.

Trump has long taken pride in his selections for the federal judiciary, of which there were hundreds during his first term, and he has also indicated he expects from his judges, in turn, a degree of loyalty. That pressure has only become more acute during Trump’s second term, as he has taken to targeting federal judges who have presented obstacles to his administration’s agenda.

In plenty of ways, Bove fits the mold of Trump judicial nominees. But Bove’s allegiance to Trump goes deeper than those of Trump’s previous judicial picks. Before joining the DOJ as a top agency official, Bove represented Trump in criminal probes around the retention of classified documents and efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

The cases were ultimately dismissed after Trump’s 2024 electoral victory, and not long after, some of his onetime attorneys, including Bove, joined the upper ranks of his administration. Todd Blanche, who worked with Bove on those cases, is now deputy attorney general.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a brief interview last week he had urged his Democratic colleagues to make the case, as a party on the Senate floor, to the American people that Bove was unfit for the lifetime appointment due to his record and his loyalty to Trump.

“Essentially, it’s loyalty to Donald Trump … despite all of these utterly sickening failing[s],” Blumenthal said.

Democrats devoted significant time and resources to fighting the Bove nomination, from floor speeches to remarks at their weekly press conference led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

They pointed to Bove’s role in the dismissal of federal corruption charges against Eric Adams — a move that prompted questions over whether the Democratic mayor of New York City had engaged in a quid pro quo to have the case dropped in exchange for cooperating with federal immigration enforcement officials at the Rikers jail facility. Democrats also decried Bove’s role in the dismissal of prosecutors who worked on cases in the Biden administration tied to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Judiciary Committee Democrats also staged a protest, walking out of the committee markup to advance the Bove nomination when committee chair Chuck Grassley said he would pause proceedings rather than allow members of the minority party to continue airing their grievances. At one point, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) shouted that the committee had devolved into a “kangaroo court.”

Three whistleblowers also came forward over the course of Bove’s confirmation process to lodge allegations against the nominee. Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department official who worked with Bove, detailed Bove’s recommendation to defy the immigration court orders. Democrats sought to hold a hearing where Reuveni could testify under oath. Grassley declined the request, and doubled down on the Senate floor Tuesday against insinuations that he was shirking his responsibility to thoroughly vet Bove’s credentials.

“No one can say that I don’t take whistleblower complaints seriously, or that I don’t investigate allegations in good faith,” said Grassley, the 91-year-old co-founder of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus. “I’ve always said that my door is open to whistleblowers, and my efforts regarding the Bove nomination show this is true.”

A second whistleblower, represented by the nonprofit group Whistleblower Aid, claimed to support the complaint, while Grassley’s staff met with attorneys for a third whistleblower Monday. Democrats said this was further proof that Bove’s nomination should be reconsidered — but Grassley countered that Democrats had mishandled the whistleblower’s allegations and questioned the late timing, given a final vote on Bove was poised to take place in the coming days.

“My message to the three whistleblowers is this: just because I may disagree with the conclusions in a whistleblower disclosure, it doesn’t mean that I don’t support a whistleblower’s right to come forward,” Grassley said Tuesday.

Democrats’ case against Bove resonated with Collins, who has split with Trump on a number of nominees more than seven months into the president’s second term.

“We have to have judges who will adhere to the rule of law and the Constitution and do so regardless of what their personal views may be,” she said in a statement. “Mr. Bove’s political profile and some of the actions he has taken in his leadership roles at the Department of Justice cause me to conclude he would not serve as an impartial jurist.”

But Democrats ultimately couldn’t peel off the two other Republicans necessary to thwart Bove’s confirmation. Republicans could have lost up to three senators in and still confirmed the nominee with Vice President JD Vance as the tiebreaking vote. Among the other potential defectors, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), member of the Judiciary panel, had effectively sunk the confirmation chances for Trump’s previous U.S. attorney nominee for the District of Columbia. But in the case of Bove, Tillis said he was hesitant to place weight in the anonymous complaints.

Senate Judiciary ranking member Dick Durbin said he was not surprised by Bove’s inevitable confirmation. He pointed to the fact that Attorney General Pam Bondi made an appearance in person at his confirmation hearing — an unusual move for a judicial nominee that underscored the pressure Republicans were under to endorse Trump’s pick.

Still, he decried the lack of Republican interest in getting to the bottom of the allegations against Bove: “They can’t answer the basic question: why wouldn’t you allow a whistleblower under oath to tell their story as to what he did and lied about before our committee?” Durbin said of his Republican colleagues. “They’re not interested.”

Congress

GOP leaders cancel Friday votes as House agenda hangs in balance

Published

23 minutes ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republican leaders have canceled planned Friday votes as GOP hard-liners continue threatening to block legislative action over an elections bill that is stalled in the Senate, according to a notice sent to members Thursday.

Members are expected to leave town after a 1 p.m. vote Thursday, and it’s possible they might not return Monday as planned: Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to discuss the legislative agenda with President Donald Trump at an afternoon meeting in hopes of brokering a solution that will allow the House to resume voting next week.

If not, the House could join the Senate on an extended recess, not returning till mid-July, two people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations said.

Congress

Raskin launches discharge effort to formally block ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’

Published

2 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is launching a campaign to force a floor vote on legislation that would formally block the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

The so-called No Carte Blanche Act — a tongue-in-cheek nod to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — also would also explicitly bar payouts from the Judgement Fund, a pre-existing account for settlements with the United States, to people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

While Blanche, who will sit for a confirmation hearing July 15 to run the Justice Department in a more permanent capacity, recently told lawmakers that the administration was abandoning the effort amid bipartisan backlash, he has refused to put that pledge in a written declaration to Congress.

“This is why Congress must act to comprehensively shut down this shameful shakedown once and for all,” Raskin, of Maryland, said in a statement. “The people’s representatives must decide whether to uphold the rule of law and protect taxpayer dollars—or stand aside as this unprecedented corruption spins out of control.”

Raskin is attempting to compel a floor vote on his bill through a discharge petition, where 218 signatures in support will require Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the measure up for a vote. It’s a maneuver members of both parties have deployed with success in recent months due to the GOP’s slim majority — and it’s possible it could work this time, too, with a small number of House Republicans on record opposing the fund.

It would likely face an uphill battle getting the necessary 60 votes in the Senate to become law, however: An earlier attempt from Democrats to block the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from going into effect failed in a 50-49 vote.

The fund was created out of a settlement from President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the federal government over the leak of his tax returns. While it was purportedly intended to provide financial compensation to individuals deemed victims of “lawfare,” critics worried it was designed to reward Trump’s allies.

Also as part of the settlement agreement, Trump, his family and businesses would be freed from any current audits of their taxes. Raskin’s legislation would also block that provision.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Johnson tries to clean up Trump’s Hill mess

Published

4 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s obsession with the SAVE America Act has hurled Congress into indefinite gridlock.

Senators are gone until July 13 after starting their Independence Day recess a few days early.

Now House Republican lawmakers are looking toward Speaker Mike Johnson, who will Thursday head to the White House to try to convince the president to salvage the GOP’s legislative agenda.

The president’s insistence Congress pass the controversial election security legislation has ground both chambers to a halt.

The deadlock threatens to derail a host of other legislative efforts Republicans and the White House hoped to complete in the coming weeks, including a sweeping reconciliation bill filled with potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in Iran war military funding, billions of dollars in relief for farmers, fiscal 2027 funding bills and the annual defense policy bill.

“I’d like to celebrate victories, not come up with reasons why we failed,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said in an interview, joining other Republicans in venting frustration after Trump scrapped a planned signing of a major housing affordability bill Wednesday.

“We’ve demonstrated a lot of dysfunction lately,” he said.

Wednesday’s explosive lunch with Trump and GOP senators probably didn’t help.

“The president came to the Capitol to do what he thinks Senate Republican leadership can’t do: flip votes on SAVE and nuking the filibuster,” a senior Senate GOP aide told Jordain.

“He left with the same number of votes that existed when he arrived — possibly fewer.”

Now eyes are on Johnson, who has lost control of the floor as hard-liners demand the Senate pass the elections overhaul.

He’s keeping the House in session ahead of his 2 p.m. Trump meeting in hopes of salvaging plans to put several bills on the floor this week — including a pair of fiscal 2027 spending measures.

But if Johnson and Trump can’t reach a compromise, GOP leadership may cancel all votes for the remainder of the week and next week, too.

That would further imperil their plans for another party-line reconciliation bill and the $88 billion supplement funding request the White House transmitted Wednesday.

What else we’re watching:

— JOHNSON’S PITCH FOR RECON 3.0 FALLS SHORT: House GOP leaders are trying to make good on their promise to advance a long-shot, party-line package of conservative priorities by arguing it’s the only chance to pass pieces of Trump’s doomed elections bill. So far, their pitch is falling short. Members who attended a meeting with House Budget Republicans Wednesday argued the REAL ID grant program Johnson proposed was no substitute for enacting the full SAVE America Act. And fiscal hawks on the panel warned they would oppose any budget resolution unless it’s paid for on a yearly basis, and without budgeting gimmicks.

— TRUMP’S $88B ASK FOR IRAN WAR, FARM AID: The White House sent Congress Wednesday a much-awaited request for emergency funding to cover military operations in Iran, farm assistance and disaster assistance. But the proposal could complicate House Republicans’ pursuit of a third party-line spending package, which was supposed to be centered around $350 billion in defense funding that Democrats wouldn’t support. The request for tens of billions of dollars in extra war spending comes as the House Appropriations panel Wednesday advanced a $1.1 trillion base budget plan for the Pentagon. Taken together, the three efforts represent a record-breaking roughly $1.5 trillion military budget, about a 50 percent hike from this year’s level.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Meredith Lee Hill, Connor O’Brien and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.