Donald Trump may have gotten his way with Emil Bove’s confirmation to a lifetime federal judgeship, but the move may already be coming back to haunt Republicans in ways they never anticipated.
Federal prosecutor Brandan Ballou shared significant backlash that he’s seeing in the legal system less than a week after Bove was put into his new position.
Ballou said is only sounding the alarm publicly because he tried to tell Republicans in private — and all but one completely ignored him.
Bove, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, was added to the prestigious Third Circuit Court of Appeals despite explosive allegations about his conduct as a top Justice Department official. According to Ballou, Bove “behaved like someone who still believed that the president was his client” while supposedly serving the American people.
According to two whistleblowers, the newly-minted judge allegedly urged government lawyers to defy federal court orders halting deportation flights, telling subordinates they might need to consider telling judges “f–k you” if courts tried to stop Trump’s agenda.
“As a practicing lawyer and former prosecutor, I find this astonishing,” wrote Ballou, who worked on January 6 prosecutions. “I have never heard a colleague or opposing counsel propose to ignore a court order; it runs counter to our entire profession.”
Bove also allegedly orchestrated political purges, firing roughly two dozen lawyers who had worked on January 6 cases—despite having “once eagerly worked on January 6 cases himself.” He pushed out career attorneys who refused to drop the corruption prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams in what sources described as an “obviously unethical order.”
But here’s where Trump’s gambit is backfiring on the Republican Party, Ballou wrote. Conservative judges are apparently so alarmed by appointments like Bove that they’re refusing to retire, denying Trump future vacancy opportunities.
“Trump and his allies might come to regret appointing such a transparent partisan to the federal bench,” he wrote.
Ballou wrote that Bloomberg Law found just 16 judicial vacancies opened up through June 1 of Trump’s second term—a dramatic drop from the 26 seats that became available during the same period of his first presidency, and far below the 57 that opened during Biden’s comparable timeframe.
“I’d heard a ‘hint or two’ that [former peers] would stay beyond their eligibility for senior status to see what happens toward the end of the Trump administration,” retired Bush-appointed Judge Ursula Ungaro told Bloomberg Law.
The judicial revolt appears linked to Trump’s abandonment of traditional conservative legal gatekeepers. During his first term, Trump relied heavily on Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo to vet judicial nominees. No longer.
Frustrated that his previous appointees have occasionally ruled against him, Trump now calls Leo a “real ‘sleazebag’” who “probably hates America.” The president is now flying solo on judicial picks—and choosing lawyers like Bove “whose only apparent loyalty is to his own ambition, not to any particular legal philosophy,” Ballou wrote.
The development threatens to unravel what Ballou called the GOP’s central “bargain” with Trump: Republicans tolerate his “obvious unfitness for office” in exchange for reliably conservative judges.
“Even Republican senators eager to push the judiciary to the right should, out of their own self-interest, vote against confirming Bove,” Ballou argued.
Ballou said he and others in the legal world reached out to several Republican senators to warn them of the revolt. Only Chuck Grassley’s (R-IW) staff agreed to hear their concerns.
For conservative judges who “care about the rule of law,” Bove’s conduct as a DOJ official “offers a reason to reconsider retirement,” he wrote.