# Emil Bove **Emil Bove** went from Donald Trump's personal criminal-defense lawyer to the Justice Department official who carried out the first purges of the second term, and then to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He did all three in about eighteen months. In the vault he is the clearest single example of the **defense-counsel-to-department pipeline**, alongside [[Todd Blanche]]. ## From prosecutor to Trump's lawyer Bove was a career federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, where he co-led the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit. In 2023–24 he joined Trump's defense team. He was Blanche's second chair in the Manhattan hush-money trial and worked on the classified-documents and 2020 election cases. ## At Main Justice (2025) When Trump returned to office, Bove served as **acting Deputy Attorney General** (January–March 2025) and then as **Principal Associate Deputy AG** under Blanche. In that role: - **Purges.** On Jan 31, 2025, he ordered the firing of prosecutors who had worked on January 6 cases. He also demanded the names of FBI personnel who had worked on them, and accused senior FBI officials of "insubordination" when they resisted. - **The Adams case.** On Feb 10, 2025, his memo directed the dismissal of the corruption case against New York Mayor [[Eric Adams]]. Acting SDNY U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon refused, and she and several other prosecutors resigned rather than sign the dismissal (Feb 13). - **"F— you."** In a June 2025 whistleblower disclosure, fired DOJ lawyer Erez Reuveni alleged that at a March 14, 2025 meeting about the Alien Enemies Act deportation flights, Bove suggested the department might have to tell courts "f— you." A second whistleblower backed up the account. Bove told senators he did not recall saying it. ## The confirmation Trump nominated him to the Third Circuit on **May 28, 2025**. Judiciary Committee Democrats **walked out** of the July 17 vote, and the committee approved him without them. The Senate confirmed him **50–49 on July 29, 2025**, with Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voting no. ## On the bench - **The ethics complaint (December 2025).** The watchdog Fix the Court filed a misconduct complaint after Bove attended a Trump event in Pennsylvania on Dec 9. Bove said he was there "just as a citizen." The outcome is not confirmed. - **The Khalil recusal motion (April 2026).** [[Mahmoud Khalil]], whose deportation case Bove's DOJ had pursued, asked him to recuse from the en banc stage of his appeal. The government said it "defers to Judge Bove." His ruling on the motion is not confirmed. - **What he hasn't heard.** He did *not* sit on the panel that affirmed the disqualification of [[Alina Habba]] as New Jersey's U.S. attorney (Dec 1, 2025). ## See also - [[Todd Blanche]] · [[Department of Justice]] · [[DOJ Component Tree]] · [[Public Integrity Section]] - [[Eric Adams]] · [[Mahmoud Khalil]] · [[Alina Habba]] · [[Stop the Steal Timeline]] · [[Federal Prosecutors Hub]]