America's Judicial System is Going Off The Rails

Emil Bove is the most egregious example yet of the Trump administration placing judges with no respect for the rule of law into positions where they are determining the law, argues Matt Bernardini

Emil Bove at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, 25 June 2025. Photo: Francis Chung/POLITICO/Associated Press/Alamy

Amid all the scandals and authoritarian actions taken by the Trump administration so far, much of mainstream media and some in the Democratic party have continued to point to the judiciary as a sign that our system of checks and balances is holding. They say that the courts have restricted much of Trump’s agenda, a sign that maybe the creeping authoritarianism we are witnessing won’t actually reach the worst case scenario.

This messaging is incredibly short-sighted, as the recent appointment of Emil Bove illustrates. Slowly but surely, the Trump administration has been able to place judges with no respect for the rule of law into positions where they are determining the law. Bove just happens to be the most egregious example to date.

Bove was confirmed earlier this week to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals by a 50-49 vote, with just two Republicans voting against his massively unqualified nomination. Now he will sit on the court for the rest of his life.

Bove was Trump’s former personal attorney last year during his trial in New York city where he faced 34 counts of falsifying business records. Before that he was a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, where according to Politico, he was already causing problems. Bove apparently was so tough on his former colleagues, and frequently belittled them to the point that leaders of the US Attorney’s Office conducted an internal review and concluded that Bove should be demoted. However he ended up avoiding a demotion and then left the office in early 2022, going back into the private sector.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Bove’s most serious infractions have come since the beginning of this year. In February, while serving as the new Acting Deputy Attorney General, Bove was instrumental in the decision to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The dismissal was widely seen as an egregious example of quid pro quo corruption, where the Justice Department would look the other way and Adams would go along with the President’s immigration policies.