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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, the Senate this week is considering a nominee so patently unfit to be a Federal judge, so lacking in the temperament, integrity, and judgment to serve as an arbiter of the Nation's laws, that the chorus of opposition has grown deafening and the facts revealing his unfitness for office are too voluminous to be ignored.
I am speaking, of course, of Emil Bove, the lawyer whose misconduct was so egregious, his fellow prosecutors in the Southern District of New York thought he should be demoted; someone whose management of cases was so flawed that a Federal judge not only concluded that his team had misled the court but that it withheld exculpatory evidence. The court then ordered the case dismissed, and the Southern District prosecutor's office didn't even bother to try to refile the case. It was that tainted by Mr. Bove's leadership of that team.
After Bove left the U.S. Attorney's Office under the threat of demotion, he became one of Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyers, losing the hush money payment to a porn star case in which Donald Trump is convicted of dozens of felonies.
Bove, though, turned that loss and his blind obedience to Trump into a top position at the Department of Justice. And now, for the past months, it seems like every time there has been an abuse of power at the Justice Department, Emil Bove either directed it, supervised it, or carried it out himself.
When Donald Trump wanted to purge the Justice Department of prosecutors who worked diligently to investigate the January 6 insurrection, Bove was the instrument of his vengeance. When Trump wanted to purge the Department of prosecutors who proved to juries beyond a reasonable doubt that the violent offenders who attacked police officers that day did so to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, Emil Bove was there to punish not the criminals but the prosecutors.
When Stephen Miller and then-FBI Director Nominee Kash Patel worked to carry out an additional purge of career FBI officials who worked on the January 6 investigations, Emil Bove was there too.
Earlier this year, when the Trump administration wanted a justification to freeze grants already approved from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and they wanted to trump up some justification--some rationale for trying to prevent the distribution of these funds--whom did they turn to? Well, of course, they turned to Emil Bove. He and then-U.S. Attorney Ed Martin pressured the head of the Criminal Division for the DC U.S. Attorney's Office to open a criminal investigation into the fund. But there was a problem. There was no evidence of criminal activity. There was no probable cause. There was no predication.
How do we know this? How do we know the opening of this case or the threat of opening this case was bogus? Because the Chief of the Criminal Division in that office resigned rather than comply with this unethical edict.
When Trump's DOJ sought to dismiss a serious and credible corruption case against the mayor of New York Eric Adams, who was the one who ordered career prosecutors to drop the case? That is right, Emil Bove.
Time after time, we have seen career public servants stand up to abuses of power like this and refuse to obey, leaving careers they loved at the Justice Department rather than be part of Bove's perversion of justice.
I served for almost 6 years in the Justice Department. I know the sense of mission that the lawyers in that Department feel and how much they love serving and appearing before a court and introducing themselves on behalf of the United States. It is not a job that people give up easily or for no reason. I also know that, when put in the position of choosing to follow their ethics and the law or choosing to obey a dishonorable and dishonest instruction from a supervisor, yes, they will resign their posts, and so many have.
Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon was ordered by Bove to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams. In refusing, she called it what it was: an ``improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for the dismissal of his case''--in other words, a quid pro quo.
I just want to underscore for people what this means and how astonishingly abnormal and unethical this action was.
The Justice Department intervened in a criminal case in New York over the objection of the prosecutors handling the case, including the acting U.S. attorney, to dismiss that corruption case against a public official, not because there was a lack of evidence--they didn't even try to claim that--not because there was any prosecutorial misconduct-- they didn't even try to argue that--but because he was useful to the President on his immigration policy. It is an edict from Bove that says: If you do the President's bidding, we have got your back; we will make your corruption case go away--a quid pro quo.
Now, interestingly, they didn't want it to go away completely. They wanted it to go away without prejudice--that is, so they could bring it back if he didn't do exactly what the President wanted. Anyone who has ever served in the Justice Department can tell you just how unethical that is.
Rather than obey those orders from Bove, Acting U.S. Attorney Sassoon resigned, and many others followed.
One of them said:
I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or . . . a coward to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.
No, it didn't have to be him because it was enough for Emil Bove. He is there whenever Donald Trump needs someone to carry out his will, regardless of ethical or even legal considerations. And dedicated public servants, career prosecutors are standing up, willing to risk their jobs and willing to risk retaliation by a vindictive President.
Some of those brave attorneys have come to our committees as whistleblowers. In one case, Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran at the Department who worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations, shared with our committee that Emil Bove told DOJ's lawyers that they would need to consider telling the courts ``f you'' and ignore any such court order that might get in the way of the Trump administration's strategy of rapid deportation without due process. In fact, Bove's lawyers at the DOJ would go on to lie to the judge and violate court orders, prompting the judge to issue an order to show cause why they should not be held in contempt.
Senator Whitehouse is exactly right: The court of appeals has delayed that hearing on the order to show cause why those lawyers under Bove's supervision should not be held in contempt. And my colleagues here want to rush this thing through. Well, what will they say if the judge finds that Bove and others at the Justice Department willfully ignored court orders? What will they say once they have given him a lifetime tenure on the court of appeals?
During Bove's confirmation hearing, I asked him about his ``f you'' instruction, and he made the dubious claim that he couldn't recall. Now, that is remarkable. It is not like we are talking about events that happened 10 years ago. This was, like, 2 months ago, just a few weeks ago. I think I would remember if I had told other lawyers that we should say ``f you'' to the courts.
So either he instructs them frequently to say ``f you'' to the courts, such that he wouldn't remember this particular occasion, or he is being dishonest with us. But his use of that vulgar injunction was corroborated by other DOJ lawyers in text messages. So we really don't need to wonder about this.
As one DOJ lawyer texted another:
Guess it's find out time on the ``f you.''
Well, now it is ``find out'' time for the U.S. Senate, when we find out whether we are willing to confirm just anybody--no matter how unfit, no matter how terrible the record, no matter how abundant the evidence. It is ``find out'' time for the U.S. Senate.
What was Bove's role in tasking the DOJ and the FBI to scour old Epstein files and flag mentions of Donald Trump? I know my colleague Senator Booker has tried to find out, and Senator Durbin has tried to find out. We don't know because Bove refuses to tell us, but we do know that his fellow criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche--he and Blanche were the two lawyers who represented Trump in that ``hush money payment to a porn star'' case. Todd Blanche is now rushing to meet with Epstein's chief coconspirator in jail. It is self-evident that Blanche is there to represent the President's personal interests, not the public's interest, and Bove represents exactly the same problem.
With Bove's nomination, we are about to find out if Republicans are content to give a man so routinely in defiance of the rule of law a lifetime job of interpreting it on behalf of millions of Americans.
We wanted to hear from those whistleblowers like Erez Reuveni, who is just one of the hundreds of public servants who is speaking out, but Republicans have declined our request for testimony and additional hearings, even as they have rushed to jam through this nomination for a lifetime position. Sadly, we will all have a lifetime to regret it.
Like so many of his unfit Cabinet nominees, Donald Trump is daring Senate Republicans to oppose him. I hope and pray they will because the pattern is clear: Emil Bove takes orders from Donald Trump, and that is it. His only merit is blind obedience, not to the law but to the President, and not just to any President but one who is also a convicted felon.
So I urge my colleagues to look at Bove's record of disrespect for the law and reject this dangerous nominee.
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