The official of the Justice Department Emil Bove, at a confirmation hearing for Jugueship, says that “it is not anyone’s henchman”

Emil Bove, former defense lawyer of President Donald Trump who took aggressive measures to enforce Trump’s political agenda in the Department of Justice in the first months of his presidency, he told the Senate Judicial Committee: “I am not the henchman of anyone” at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday to consider it for a federal trial.

Last month, Trump took advantage of Bove, who has been helping the Department of Justice, for a trial in the Third Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit, which supervises the District Courts in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

In his opening statement on Wednesday, Bove vigorously played what he described as “a tremendously inaccurate cartoon” of himself generated by the “conventional media” that has thrown him as a “henchman” of President Trump.

“I am someone who tries to defend what I think is correct, I am not afraid to make difficult decisions. I understand that some of those decisions have generated controversy,” Bove said. “I respect this process, and today I am here to address some of your questions about those decisions, but I want to be clear about a thing in advance: there is a very inaccurate cartoon of me in the main media. I am not anyone’s henchman. I am not an executor.”

The hearing occurred one day after a former DAJ career issued an explosive complaint complaint that accused Bave of allegedly suggesting that the Trump administration should challenge the judicial orders that sought to restrict their aggressive efforts to deport undocumented immigrants earlier this year.

The complaint, presented by Erez Reuveni, who was fired from the department in April after he appeared in a federal court in Maryland and admitted to a judge that the Government had deported by mistake MS-13, Kilmar Abrego García, to El Salvador, alleged that in a meeting on March 14, Bove, said the department that “F ——- to the Court and the order of the Court and the order of the Court and the order of the court should be considered.”

Asked by Senator Adam Schiff about the alleged comments, Bove said: “Senator, I don’t remember saying anything like that.”

“Do you suggest … that the DOJ would have to consider telling the courts” F — you “and” ignore any court order “?” Schiff asked.

“I did not suggest that there was a need to consider ignoring judicial orders, at the time of that meeting, there were no judicial orders to discuss,” Bove replied.

“Well, did you suggest telling the courts in any matter?” Schiff asked.

“I don’t remember,” Bove said.

Schiff, together with other Democrats in the committee, said he would issue a formal request for the committee to be awarded any note of the meetings described in the complaint that may have formally documented what Bove said.

Bove said that the presentation of Reuveni’s complaint, a career officer for a long time that he was promoted under the first Trump administration for his legal immigration work, was an example of the “not chosen bureaucracy” who sought to frustrate “the unit executive” and “the people who chose the president.”

“What I mean by that is that, throughout this complaint, there is a suggestion that a line lawyer, not even the head of the Immigration Litigation Office, was in a position or considered itself, to link leadership and other cabinet officials,” Bove said. “I don’t remain that line of thought in my management style, and I don’t apologize for that.”

In an exchange with Senator Eric Schmitt, Bove detailed how his past representation of Trump as a defense lawyer helped to boost his aggressive movements in the Department of Justice, where he triggered prosecutors involved in Trump investigations and reassigned dozens more officials in his high -level career who worked on issues such as public corruption and national security in lower level immigration offenses.

“From the perspective of a prosecutor, senator, it made me a person who wanted to recover that building on the right path, a clue where people, in fact, are doing the right thing for the right reasons, and I think there are many, many, many people, professional officials in the department, who are doing only that,” Bove said. “But I also believe that there are parts of the department that have lost sight of that obligation, and I saw that in my experiences as a defense lawyer.”

“And so, what I would say is that this experience gave me, providing and the same intense focus on reform efforts to ensure that the bureaucracy not chosen in the department was not in a position to subvert the political will of the democratically chosen president,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Democrats in the committee expressed the exasperation of Bove repeatedly invoking the privilege of refusing to answer certain questions about the actions he has taken in his five months helping to supervise the Department of Justice.

He refused to respond if there was any direct participation by White House officials such as Stephen Miller in the decision of the Justice Department to withdraw federal corruption charges against the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, in exchange for his support for the immigration application. Multiple career prosecutors resigned in protest for the measure, but Bove rejected the accusations that there was an agreement of “Quid Pro quo”.

“I am absolutely dumbfounded that you would come before this committee and you refuse to tell us basic facts about a case that is in the center of the accusations to the appearance of incorrectness that they should disqualify you,” said Senator Richard Blucenthal. “He has the opportunity to clean the air, to clarify with the American people and this committee, and are evading and avoiding these questions.”

Adams has denied the accusations and rejected the accusations of a quid quo pro.

Pressing when classifying the member of the Judicial Branch of the Democratic Senate Dick Durbin for his early movement in Trump’s presidency to request a complete list of FBI agents who investigated the assault of January 6 to the Capitol, Bove argued that the request was based on an effort to identify any personnel who could have participated in the lack of start, not point to them for investing the attack itself.

“I did it and continued condemning illegal behavior, particularly violence against the application of the law,” Bove said. “At the same time, hard -hand and unnecessary tactical condemnation by prosecutors and agents. Both things that I present are characteristic of these events.”

Bove also said that he found statements in an article for Law360 in 2022 in which he described the attack of the Capitol as “domestic terrorism” and argued that there was no inconsistency between that belief and its shots of multiple prosecutors of January 6 in the DCU lawyers in its initial weeks in the Department of Justice.

Durbin, in his opening comments at the Audience on Wednesday, said: “President Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, Mr. Bove has led the effort to arm the Department of Justice against the president’s enemies. Having won his stripes as loyal to this president, he has been rewarded with this life nomination.”

The judicial president of the Republican Senate, Chuck Grassley, considered Bove as a victim of an “intense opposition campaign” of the Democrats and the media.

“I think this committee owes this nominee a shake and respect right at this audience,” said Grassley. “This is not the first time that this Congress at a nomination hearing in a context of breathless statements that one of President Trump’s nominees is not qualified or not suitable.”

Grassley argued that legislators should seek Bove’s curriculum as federal prosecutor in the United States prosecutor for the Southern District of New York and his time as a judicial employee in the Court of Appeals of the 2nd Circuit, before serving as Trump’s personal lawyer.

“This greater participation worked demands an acute legal trial and a constant resolution,” said Grassley. “Day after day, I was in the trenches putting terrorists and drug traffickers behind bars … In a nutshell, Mr. Bove verifies each box: academic distinction, federal courtship, complex judgment and appeal litigation, leadership of the senior justice. His experience is not only enough, it is very exceptional.”

It is not clear immediately when the Bove nomination will be formally voted outside the committee or when the Senate will schedule its confirmation vote.