STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Emil Bove is now a federal appeals court judge. Before his confirmation by the Senate yesterday, he was a top official of the Justice Department and, before that, a personal lawyer to President Trump. At the Justice Department, he was involved in pardoning January 6 rioters and dropping corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. A whistleblower also claimed that Bove told prosecutors they might have to defy court orders. Bove told senators at his confirmation hearing that he never told anyone to violate a court order. Now he has this lifetime appointment to a court.
Ankush Khardori is a former federal prosecutor and senior writer at Politico Magazine. Good morning.
ANKUSH KHARDORI: Good morning.
INSKEEP: How rare is it for a president's personal lawyer to become a federal appeals court judge in this way?
KHARDORI: It's extremely rare. I mean, honestly, I can't think of a real precedent here. Trump is the first president who was criminally prosecuted. So the idea that his criminal defense lawyer made it into a top post in the Justice Department and is now going to be a judge on the 3rd Circuit is quite a remarkable turn of events, and I don't think there's any real precedent for it.
INSKEEP: It's also remarkable because, whether you believe the whistleblower or not about Bove's exact words, he was part of a Justice Department that was openly campaigning against court orders they disagreed with and campaigning against the judiciary.
KHARDORI: Yeah. That is correct. I mean, this Justice Department has been particularly aggressive about that. You know, the whistleblower, his name is Erez Reuveni. I'd done some reporting around him, and, you know, his former colleagues describe him as credible and nonpartisan, pretty much to a person. And, you know, in the last week or so, some other whistleblowers emerged. They were unnamed. They didn't come forward publicly, but they appeared to - one, at least, and maybe even two appeared to have attempted to corroborate Mr. Reuveni's claims. So, you know, it was quite a serious set of allegations, and we're in a quite unusual moment in Justice Department history.
INSKEEP: Well, these allegations came to a Senate committee chaired by Chuck Grassley of Iowa, longtime United States senator who has a reputation of supporting whistleblowers. What did he do with the allegations?
KHARDORI: You know, the confirmation hearing from Bove where he testified came one day after Mr. Reuveni released his disclosures. And Grassley was immediately skeptical and suggested - well, explicitly said that he thought it was a Democratic hit job coordinated with the media. He said similar things after the subsequent whistleblowers emerged and fast-tracked this nomination over strenuous objections by Senate judiciary Democrats. So, you know, on its face at least, that's all quite inconsistent with someone who takes whistleblower disclosures very seriously because these sort of got brushed aside very quickly and for no particularly good reason. There was really no rush to put Bove on this seat.
INSKEEP: Did he try to explain his sudden change of heart in this particular case regarding whistleblowers?
KHARDORI: Yeah. He has. I mean, I think he takes this matter personally, I can tell you. You know, I wrote something about this, and he responded on the Senate floor at one point. You know, he has said he has a long history of whistleblower advocacy and that he had questions about Mr. Reuveni's disclosures and said that even if it were true, it wouldn't have been fatal to his nomination. All of that is very disputable, but that is the defense he's put forward, including last night after the nomination went through.
INSKEEP: Bottom line - Bove is an appeals court judge. So he's in a powerful position now.
KHARDORI: Indeed he is. And there are some folks who think he may very well be in line for the next Supreme Court vacancy.
INSKEEP: Ankush Khardori is a former federal prosecutor and senior writer at Politico Magazine. Thanks so much.
KHARDORI: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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