President Donald Trump has nominated senior Department of Justice official Emil Bove to a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, an announcement that has ignited a firestorm of opposition across the political landscape — from the left about qualifications and consultation, and from the right regarding his overall fitness for the bench. 

The fixation in this storm of controversy is the fact that Bove previously worked as the president’s personal attorney, representing him in the numerous criminal prosecutions that he faced during his time out of office.

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Here, yet again, we find ourselves in the bizarre universe of double standards that apply only to Trump. Before Bove, when was a private lawyer’s representation of the president of the United States ever held against the lawyer when he sought a promotion in government? Both the left and the right are wrong, but the debate is merely academic because Bove will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.  

Criticisms from the left that Bove is unqualified are ridiculous. Despite claims to the contrary, Bove has excellent credentials. In fact, Bove’s profile is right out of central casting for an appellate judgeship during Trump’s first term. 

Compare Bove’s resume to that of Trump’s first-ever appellate nominee, Judge Amul Thapar. Bove and Thapar both graduated from top 15 law schools, clerked for federal district and circuit judges, spent a brief time in private practice as litigation associates, served as federal prosecutors, then returned to private practice prior to entering high-level DOJ positions before being nominated to the federal bench. 

Nobody complained about Thapar’s nomination because there was nothing to complain about — needless to say that while the American Bar Association no longer has a role in evaluating judicial candidates, Bove would deserve a “well-qualified” rating. As such, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) should have no problem voting for him with a clear conscience.

Claims that New Jersey senators were not “adequately consulted” are also a joke.  Bove was floated along with a slate of other prospective nominees to the New Jersey Senators months ago. These names were met with the same radio silence Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) greeted the White House with during the entirety of Trump’s first term—and as we know, the president has a long memory. Over four years, Booker refused to return a single blue slip, then proceeded to grandstand over the White House’s supposed lack of adequate consultation. He followed this act with an encore performance as ringmaster of the circus that unfolded during the Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation.    

Perhaps we should be thanking Booker for reinforcing the important precedent that strong political ties to the White House are superior to objections by home-state Senators. I wonder if he is reflecting on last year’s contentious Judiciary Committee debate over the nomination of Kevin Ritz of Tennessee to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. 

At the time, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) issued a warning to Judiciary Democrats if they proceeded with a vote to confirm Ritz over the objections of Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN). “Remember this moment,” he said, because when the next president decides to “shove down the throats [nominees] in your circuits,” they “won’t have the moral high ground” to demand that Republicans stand with them. This path was well-paved during the Biden administration. Last week, the Trump administration rolled out the red carpet.  

Finally, claims from the right that Bove is Trump’s “henchman” are unfair. While it is true that Trump did not nominate any of his personal lawyers to the bench during the first term, he hadn’t yet needed an army of lawyers to push back on the lawfare that wasted countless hours of judicial resources—nor has any president in our history had such a need. It’s only natural that as a consequence of that ordeal the president would encounter a few lawyers who would be great judges. 

Indeed, judicial nominees throughout history have more frequently than not shared some connection to the president that nominated them or his party, and the president has the right to know what he’s getting when he invests his political capital into a nominee. We saw this on full display over the last four years where former President Joe Biden nominated Democratic operatives like Dale Ho, who repeatedly bashed conservative values and personally attacked Senate Republicans, to the District Court for the Southern District of New York and Nancy Abudu, an activist who previously worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center, to the 11th Circuit.

Ironically, Bove’s greatest sin appears to be a willingness to put into practice theories touted at many conservative legal movement events throughout my lifetime. In a few short months, Bove has demonstrated fortitude in the face of certain hostility from Washington elites and the legal profession writ large by enforcing a robust view of the unitary executive, downsizing the bloated and overwhelmingly left-wing career staff, and eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Department of Justice. This is what conservatives want, and this is what Bove has put his law license on the line to secure. If that all makes Bove a “henchman”, we should pray for a federal judiciary full of them.

TRUMP NOMINATES EMIL BOVE TO 3RD CIRCUIT APPEALS COURT

They say you can judge the measure of a man by the company he keeps. Two of the Trump administration’s bright young stars—FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle—have already publicly endorsed Bove based on actually working with him.  

Ferguson called Bove “one of the most courageous lawyers in America” and Mizelle referred to Bove as a “fearless, law & order conservative”, which he would know from countless hours by his side at DOJ.  Ferguson and Mizelle are — as they say — “men to follow.” If the endorsements Emil Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit has collected to date are any indication of his judicial future, he will be a great judge.

Robert Luther III is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he teaches constitutional law. He served as Associate Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel’s Office from 2017 to 2018, where he co-managed the judicial selection process.