The Cowardice of Senate Democrats Made Emil Bove's Confirmation Possible - Jay Willis @ Balls and Strikes

[In It to Win It]

Balls and Strikes

On Tuesday evening, the Senate voted to confirm Emil Bove, President Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney-turned-Justice Department hatchetman, to a life-tenured judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Bove first made headlines for firing dozens of January 6 prosecutors shortly after Trump took office, parroting the president’s description of these cases as a “grave national injustice.” According to multiple whistleblowers, in March, Bove told his Justice Department subordinates that they might need to say “fuck you” to judges who were attempting to slow the White House’s various efforts to disappear noncitizens to foreign gulags. These whistleblower allegations should not be confused with separate whistleblower allegations that Bove lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his role in the dismissal of criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams—a stunt so cartoonishly corrupt that a half-dozen federal prosecutors resigned in protest.

To the best of my knowledge, Bove’s confirmation thus makes him the first-ever federal judge who is most famous for profanely asserting that a Republican president is free to ignore federal judges who have the audacity to issue orders he does not like.

Bove was opposed by several prominent conservative legal activists, more than 80 former judges, and more than 900 former Department of Justice attorneys, who in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee called Bove’s confirmation “intolerable to anyone committed to maintaining our ordered system of justice.” Yet 50 Senate Republicans, to whom this description evidently does not apply, nevertheless did as they were told. Maine Senator Susan Collins and Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski voted no, along with all 47 Senate Democrats.

Last year, Democrats could have used their Senate majority to confirm someone very different to fill the seat: Adeel Mangi, a law firm partner whom President Joe Biden nominated in November 2023. But in the months that followed, as Republicans pushed an unhinged narrative that Mangi, who would have been the first-ever Muslim federal appeals court judge, was a cop-hating terrorist sympathizer, a handful of Democratic senators began to waver. The nomination then hung in procedural limbo for nearly a year until Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, which effectively killed Mangi’s chances at confirmation. As a result, the judgeship that could have been Adeel Mangi’s is now occupied by Bove, a smirking bootlicker whose primary qualification for the job is his willingness to do whatever Mister Trump wants.

Emil Bove's confirmation was only possible because Democrats caved to a vile right-wing smear campaign of Adeel Mangi, who would have been the first Muslim appeals court judge, when Biden nominated him for the same seat last year. Absolutely disgraceful. Bove's confirmation is on them, too.

— Jay Willis (@jaywillis.net) 2025-07-30T01:28:02.616Z

The way Senate Democrats—Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, and Joe Manchin, who opposed him, and leadership, who waved the white flag on his nomination—treated Mangi should follow them the rest of their careers. Do not talk to me about how bad Bove is when you gifted his seat to Trump yourself.

— Jay Willis (@jaywillis.net) 2025-07-30T01:33:36.847Z

I can't stress enough how specious the allegations against Mangi were—egregiously Islamophobic, and also easily debunked with like three minutes of Googling. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen and Joe Manchin simply couldn't be bothered to put in the effort. ballsandstrikes.org/nominations/...

— Jay Willis (@jaywillis.net) 2025-07-30T01:39:01.904Z

My request of people who think I am too critical of Democrats is to simply *read the details* of the right-wing smear campaign against Adeel Mangi, whom Republicans tarred as anti-Semitic and “anti-police,” and tell me Dems were right to cave to this. inthesetimes.com/article/adee...

— Jay Willis (@jaywillis.net) 2025-07-30T03:11:06.445Z