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Op-Ed: Sen. Eric Schmitt: Confirm Emil Bove
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Op-Ed: Sen. Eric Schmitt: Confirm Emil Bove

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The Washington Reporter
Jul 17, 2025

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Op-Ed: Sen. Eric Schmitt: Confirm Emil Bove
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Abraham Lincoln once said that “the people are the rightful masters of both Congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.” President Donald Trump nominated Emil Bove to overthrow the left-wing activists who pervert our justice system. I fully support Bove and urge my colleagues to secure his nomination to the Third Circuit. He is a law man, through and through.

Bove’s commitment to the law is unimpeachable. He spent nine years as an Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he co-chaired the office’s Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit. He prosecuted the largest and most dangerous criminal conspiracies in the world, including Nicolás Maduro, the socialist dictator of Venezuela, and drug traffickers involved with the notorious “El Chapo.” He has the resolve we need to enforce the law faithfully and protect the American people from criminals.

It is precisely because of that record that the left fears him. We saw recently the lengths that the left is willing to go to preserve their grip on the judiciary. The New York Times just ran a baseless hit piece — whose only source is a disgruntled employee, Erez Reuveni — accusing Bove of encouraging defiance of court orders. As AG Bondi has noted, no one was ever asked to defy a court order. The only hard evidence the “whistleblower” provided was a few text messages and emails — which never mention Bove — demonstrating a general concern that he might be asked to defy court orders. He also personally signed 3 briefs arguing that DOJ had complied with all court orders, and his subsequent revisionist account arose only after he was fired because he violated his ethical duties to the department.

Moreover, Reuveni’s account is contradicted by DOJ records. A recently released letter from Reuveni’s supervisor, August Flentje — written April 8th, well before the allegations came out — makes it clear that Bove instructed them to avoid a court order through litigation, not ignore one.

This is the easiest and most insidious type of allegation: a pure he said-she said, devoid of evidence, and impossible to corroborate. The entire attack rests on an unsubstantiated and hypothetical allegation that Bove might have asked someone to defy a court order that never existed. On that account alone, the Democrats want us to throw out Emil Bove’s lifetime of public service. Republicans cannot bow to this demand.

The Democrat Party and their media allies are also attacking Bove for his work as President Donald Trump’s defense lawyer and as the Justice Department’s deputy attorney general. They’ve criticized his vigorous defense of Trump and his dismissal of the Eric Adams prosecution. But these cases show Bove’s best quality: commitment to reigning in unelected activists who think they outrank the people’s elected representatives.

Over the last decade, Americans have learned that our justice system is politicized at all levels by liberal activists, whether it be left-wing prosecutors siding with criminals over law-abiding citizens, partisan zealots like Jack Smith attacking Trump, or the district judges who have worked overtime to stop the elected president from implementing his highly popular platform. Bove has fought this politicization for years, both as Trump’s defense lawyer and as the Justice Department’s deputy attorney general. In the first instance, he fought the Democrats’ partisan prosecutions. In the second, he removed left-wing DOJ officials who refused to follow the President’s orders.

Bove’s opponents argue that these actions somehow show that he is a threat to the rule of law. But the rule of law is best served when the President is enabled to carry out the will of the people — not when unelected judges and deep state DOJ officials serve their own agenda. And perhaps that is why the left is so scared of a Judge Bove — because they know that he will stand up for the American people.

When it comes to discussions of judicial qualification, my liberal colleagues may want to sit this one out. When Joe Biden pledged to limit his nomination of a Supreme Court Justice on racial grounds, not merit, my liberal friends had nothing to say. When Ketanji Brown Jackson couldn’t define what a woman is, they cheered. Recently, we were reminded of the liberal agenda for the courts: Justice Jackson joined Justice Sotomayor in dissenting “in sadness” because the Supreme Court permitted the duly elected government of Tennessee to block life-altering gender mutilation procedures.

If the left had their way, the American people would have no ability to fight back against insane gender policies that threaten our nation’s children and our way of life. The Democrats have given up their game: They want far-left judges to push far-left policies, not qualified constitutionalists. As Missouri’s Attorney General, I joined 21 of my colleagues by suing the Biden administration when they threatened to pull federal funds from schools that didn’t adopt far-left gender ideology. We deserve to be governed by our elected representatives, not faraway liberal bureaucrats.

Emil Bove is a warrior for the American people. He has shown time and again that he won’t back down from what’s right, standing up to the world’s most dangerous criminals and drug traffickers. We need judges with a demonstrated commitment to public service and the toughness to do what’s right under immense pressure. I am pleased to support Emil Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit, and I look forward to fighting for his nomination in the Senate.

Sen. Eric Schmitt represents Missouri in the Senate and serves on the Judiciary Committee.


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