‘Very Bad News’: Conservative Legal Scholar Slams Trump Considering His Ex-Lawyer to be a Federal Judge

(Mark Schiefelbein/AP photos)

A new report on Monday revealed that President Donald Trump is considering appointing his former criminal defense lawyer, Emil Bove, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, according to the New York Times.

The report quickly raised eyebrows among observers and legal scholars who sounded the alarm over Trump appointing a partisan political operator to such a senior position in the judiciary. Bove currently serves at the Justice Department and oversaw the recent purge of career prosecutors at the DOJ.

Conservative legal commentator and former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, Ed Whelan, replied to the news, “Uh, oh. Very bad news for those of us hoping that Trump will continue first-term practice of outstanding appellate nominations.”

Whelan, who currently runs the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center think tank, added, “On other hand, if Trump does nominate Emil Bove to a Third Circuit seat, Republican senators would have an opportunity to demonstrate that they’re not going to rubber-stamp judicial nominees whose selection can only be explained by their thuggish fealty to Trump.”

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake shared Whelan’s concern and added, “Feels like a possible test run for a much more Trump-loyal potential SCOTUS nominee.”

At the DOJ, Bove successfully managed to end the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which resulted in several high-profile resignations. Hagan Scotten, the Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned in February with a scathing letter addressed to Bove. Scotten’s resignation came a day after his boss, U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, resigned and accused the Trump administration of entering into a “quid pro quo” with Mayor Adams to drop his corruption charges in exchange for loyalty.

“I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me,” Scotten wrote to Bove, rejecting his orders to dismiss the charges against Adams.