Emil Bove

Emil Bove
Bove in 2025
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Nominee
Assuming office
TBD
PresidentDonald Trump
SucceedingJoseph A. Greenaway Jr.
Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 20, 2025
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byMarshall Miller
Acting United States Deputy Attorney General
In office
January 20, 2025 – March 6, 2025
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byLisa Monaco
Succeeded byTodd Blanche
Personal details
Born
Emil Joseph Bove III

1981 (age 43–44)
Geneva, New York, United States
Spouse
Sarah Samis
​
(m. 2012)​
EducationUniversity at Albany,
SUNY (BA)
Georgetown University
Law Center (JD)

Emil Joseph Bove III (/boʊˈveɪ/; born 1981) is an American attorney who has served as the principal associate deputy attorney general since 2025. He is a nominee to serve as a circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Bove served as the acting U.S. deputy attorney general from January to March 2025.

Bove studied public policy and economics at the University at Albany, SUNY and graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 2008. He clerked for judges Richard J. Sullivan and Richard C. Wesley and became an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell before returning to federal employment an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2012. Bove was appointed co-chief of the office's terrorism and international narcotics unit in October 2019. He resigned in December 2021 and later joined Donald Trump's legal team in September 2023.

In November 2024, president-elect Trump named Bove principal associate deputy attorney general. He was appointed acting deputy attorney general when Trump took office in January 2025 and served in the position until Todd Blanche was confirmed in March. Trump nominated Bove to fill a vacancy on the Third Circuit in June.

Early life and education (1981–2008)

Emil Joseph Bove III[1] was born in 1981 in Geneva, New York,[2] spending a portion of his youth in Seneca Falls, New York.[3] His father, Emil Bove Jr., is an attorney.[4] The elder Bove served as an assistant New York attorney general.[1] In 1999, the younger Bove graduated salutatorian from Mynderse Academy, where he participated in the school's soccer, basketball, and lacrosse teams.[5] He later graduated from the University at Albany, SUNY summa cum laude in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in public policy and economics.[3] At SUNY Albany, Bove captained the Albany Great Danes men's lacrosse team. He was named the America East Conference Male Scholar Athlete in 2003.[6] After graduating, Bove worked as a paralegal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York before leaving in 2005 to attend Georgetown University Law Center,[7] graduating in 2008 with a Juris Doctor, Order of the Coif.[3] He was the editor-in-chief of The Georgetown Law Journal's Annual Review of Criminal Procedure.[6]

Career

Clerkship (2008–2012)

From 2008 to 2009, Bove clerked for Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.[1] The following year, he clerked for Judge Richard C. Wesley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[8] After his clerkships, Bove was employed as an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell.[9]

Assistant U.S. attorney (2012–2021)

In 2012, Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, hired Bove as an assistant U.S. attorney.[7] In November, he married Sarah Samis, a senior health policy analyst at the United Hospital Fund.[1] Bove was appointed co-chair of the office's terrorism and international narcotics unit in October 2019.[7] Prominent prosecutions Bove led included those against Nicolás Maduro,[10] Cesar Sayoc,[11] Tony Hernández,[12] and Fabio Lobo.[13] In 2018, he sought a supervisory position; Bove was denied a promotion after a group of defense attorneys wrote a letter expressing concerns about his legal tactics.[14] Bove assisted in identifying numerous participants of the January 6 Capitol attack.[15] He resigned in December 2021.[16]

Private practice (2022–2025)

Bove joined Chiesa, Shahinian & Giantomasi in their New York City office in January 2022.[16] In September 2023, he became a partner at Blanche Law, a law firm founded by Todd Blanche. Days later, Bove joined Donald Trump's criminal defense team.[11] In the state court criminal trial of Trump in New York, he was second chair to Blanche on Trump's defense team.[17][18] Bove represented Trump in the federal classified documents and election obstruction cases.[19]

Department of Justice (2025–present)

See also: 2025 U.S. Department of Justice resignations, March 2025 American deportations of Venezuelans, and J.G.G. v. Trump

On November 14, 2024, president-elect Donald Trump named Bove as principal associate deputy attorney general.[20] On January 20, 2025, Bove was appointed acting deputy attorney general.[21] Within days, he sent a memorandum threatening to prosecute local officials who refuse to comply with requests from the department following through on Trump's immigration policy.[22] Bove later stated that Carla B. Freedman, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, was investigating Tompkins County sheriff Derek Osborne, who allegedly allowed a Mexican citizen to be released from jail after pleading guilty to assault in the third degree.[23] That month, he instructed the leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to compile a list of prosecutors involved in criminal proceedings in the January 6 Capitol attack.[24] Hours later, over twelve federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia who investigated the attack were dismissed.[25]

Bove moved to exert greater authority over the bureau, accusing acting director Brian Driscoll and his deputy, Robert Kissane, of "insubordination" in February for refusing to provide the list of names he requested.[26] According to The Wall Street Journal, he threatened to fire Driscoll.[27] Senator Dick Durbin accused Kash Patel of directing the dismissals of career civil servants that Bove carried out.[28]

Communications between federal prosecutors and New York City mayor Eric Adams's legal team had gone through Bove since he took office, according to The New York Times.[29] Bove dismissed federal charges against Adams in February, arguing that the indictment interfered with the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.[30] The move to dismiss the case led to several resignations, including Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York,[31] Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney in the district, and five prosecutors associated with the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section, including John Keller, the acting head of the section, and Kevin Driscoll, who supervised the section as head of the Department of Justice's criminal division.[32] In her resignation letter, Sassoon alleged that Adams's lawyers had proposed a quid pro quo in which Adams would enforce the Trump administration's immigration policies in exchange for his case being dismissed, and that the Department of Justice had acquiesced.[33] In court, Bove told Judge Dale Ho there was no quid pro quo.[34] When he dismissed the case, Ho stated that the situation "smacks of a bargain" where the indictment was dismissed "in exchange for immigration policy concessions".[35]

In June, Erez Reuveni, a former lawyer for the department, filed a whistleblower report alleging that Bove had alerted select department lawyers that Trump would soon invoke the Alien Enemies Act in order to deport Venezuelans. Bove purportedly stated that if a court order attempted to prevent the deportation flights, the Department of Justice would consider "telling the courts 'fuck you'" and "ignore any such order." The following day, in J.G.G. v. Trump, judge James Boasberg ordered planes in the air to return; despite Reuveni concerns about contempt of court, Bove allegedly told the Department of Homeland Security that the flights did not need to return.[36]

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit nomination

In May 2025, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump was considering naming Bove as his nominee to occupy a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated by Joseph A. Greenaway Jr.[37][38] On May 28, Trump announced that he would nominate Bove to the appellate court.[39] His nomination was sent to the Senate on June 16.[38] Bove appeared before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on June 25.[40] The committee's chairman, Chuck Grassley, preemptively defended him from Erez Reuveni's allegations.[41] He faced questions over the Department of Justice resignations that followed the decision to dismiss Eric Adams's case.[42]. In July, six former federal prosecutors for the District of Columbia sent a letter urging the Senate Committee on the Judiciary to reject Bove's nomination, referring to him as "the worst conceivable nominee" to be appointed for an indefinite judicial position.[43]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Sarah Samis, Emil Bove III". The New York Times.
  2. ^ Bove 2025.
  3. ^ a b c "Trump attorney, Seneca Falls native Emil Bove tapped for top DOJ role". FingerLakes1.com.
  4. ^ Shaw 1981.
  5. ^ Cotterill 2024.
  6. ^ a b Porter 2023.
  7. ^ a b c Goldman et al. 2025.
  8. ^ Olechowski 2010.
  9. ^ "Who is Emil Bove?: Acting deputy attorney general expected in court for Adams hearing". WNBC.
  10. ^ Ordoñez 2016.
  11. ^ a b Cheney & Orden 2023.
  12. ^ Ernst 2019.
  13. ^ Raymond 2016.
  14. ^ Orden 2025.
  15. ^ Rabinowitz et al. 2025.
  16. ^ a b Adams & Ernst 2022.
  17. ^ Epstein 2024.
  18. ^ Protess et al. 2024.
  19. ^ Thrush et al. 2025.
  20. ^ Barrett 2024.
  21. ^ Gurman 2025.
  22. ^ Thrush 2025.
  23. ^ Maag & Sullivan 2025.
  24. ^ Goldman, Barrett & Thrush 2025.
  25. ^ Thrush et al. 2025.
  26. ^ Thrush & Goldman 2025.
  27. ^ Gurman, Barber & Viswanatha 2025.
  28. ^ Savage 2025.
  29. ^ Haberman et al. 2025.
  30. ^ Rashbaum et al. 2025.
  31. ^ Gurman, Ramey & Fanelli 2025.
  32. ^ Scannell et al. 2025.
  33. ^ Neumeister, Durkin Richer & Tucker 2025.
  34. ^ Katersky & Reinstein 2025.
  35. ^ Mangan 2025.
  36. ^ Barrett 2025a.
  37. ^ Thrush & Savage 2025a.
  38. ^ a b Headley 2025.
  39. ^ Thrush & Savage 2025b.
  40. ^ Stein 2025.
  41. ^ Barrett 2025b.
  42. ^ Barrett 2025c.
  43. ^ Hsu 2025.

Works cited

Articles

Bove, Emil (2025). "Questionnaire for Judicial Nominees" (PDF). United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 25, 2025. Retrieved June 28, 2025.

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