Cracks show in Senate GOP over Emil Bove nomination

WASHINGTON (CN) — As President Donald Trump’s controversial nominee to a crucial federal judgeship nears a final Senate vote, two Republican lawmakers have indicated they plan to oppose his confirmation.

But Democrats hoping to sink Emil Bove’s appointment will need more than a pair of GOP defections to keep the Justice Department official and former personal lawyer to the president off the federal bench.

Bove, tapped by Trump to fill a vacancy on the Third Circuit, has proven to be one of the administration’s most divisive nominees so far. Among other things, the principal associate deputy attorney general was recently the target of a whistleblower report claiming that in March he had expressed intent to violate a federal court order while serving as acting deputy attorney general.

Democrats have also argued that Bove, with his personal connection to Trump, is politically loyal to the president and would side with the administration on legal matters if confirmed to a lifetime position as a federal judge.

Republicans and the White House have disparaged criticism of Bove as a partisan smear campaign. But now, some GOP lawmakers appear to be swayed by the controversy.

Maine Senator Susan Collins became the first Senate Republican to oppose Bove’s nomination, telling MSNBC on Tuesday that she had concluded that he “would not serve as an impartial jurist” based on his political profile and actions he took as a Justice Department official.

In the whistleblower report published this month, former Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni claimed Bove had said during a meeting that the agency may need to tell a federal judge “fuck you” to carry out mass deportations. And Reuveni said Bove had advised the Department of Homeland Security to deplane deportees in El Salvador despite an oral order from a judge demanding deportation flights turn around.

“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,” Collins said Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski appeared to suggest Wednesday morning that she would also oppose Bove’s nomination. The Republican lawmaker told reporters to “look at my vote from yesterday” as an indicator of her stance.

Murkowski voted against a procedural motion to open Senate debate on Bove on Tuesday evening. However, she did not say directly Wednesday that she would vote against his confirmation.

Even if both Collins and Murkowski oppose Bove’s nomination, it would not be enough to keep him from being confirmed. Senate Republicans can afford to lose as many as three votes — if a trio of GOP lawmakers defect, Vice President JD Vance can break the resulting 50-50 tie.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a procedural measure known as cloture on Bove’s nomination Tuesday evening, an action which tees him up for a final confirmation vote in the next couple of days.

The upper chamber is moving ahead with Bove despite complaints from Democrats and some legal experts that he was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in violation of Senate rules. Democratic lawmakers walked out of a Judiciary Committee meeting last week as Republicans cut off debate on the nominee.

Some lawmakers and experts contended that Republicans had not only violated committee rules on debating nominees, but that they had also advanced Bove’s nomination without the required voting quorum present.

But Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin indicated to Courthouse News on Tuesday that the Senate parliamentarian had nonetheless ruled the vote in bounds.

The Trump administration and the Justice Department have intensely supported Bove’s nomination to the federal judiciary — a branch of government that is nominally independent from the executive. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last week penned an op-ed, published by Fox News, in which he urged the Senate to confirm “Trump’s DOJ champion” to the bench.

Blanche and Attorney General Pam Bondi were also both present at Bove’s June confirmation hearing in the Judiciary Committee, a move which the Justice Department framed as a harmless show of support but which Democrats and experts said could be seen as an effort by the Trump administration to pressure Senate Republicans into backing the nominee.

The Justice Department has called that thinking “cynical and conspiratorial.”

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