Washington — Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official who previously served as President Trump’s criminal defense attorney, declined to rule out the possibility of the president running for a third term and did not denounce the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in a questionnaire submitted to a Senate panel considering his nomination for a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote next week on whether to advance Bove’s nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. CBS News obtained the 165-page questionnaire that Bove submitted to senators in response to their written questions.
In his answers, Bove also wrote he does not recall which Jan. 6 criminal cases he helped supervise when he served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In response to the question “Do you denounce the January 6 insurrection?” Bove wrote: “The characterization of the events on January 6 is a matter of significant political debate,” and said it would be “inappropriate to address this question” given ongoing litigation over pardons of Jan. 6 defendants.
Bove, who helped defend Mr. Trump in his felony trial in New York in 2023, has been a lightning rod for Democrats who have accused him of politically weaponizing his role at the Justice Department this year to pursue the president’s goals. Bove has served as principal associate deputy attorney general since Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January, and was a federal prosecutor in New York from 2012 to 2021.
In the Senate questionnaire, Bove argued his role in shuttering the corruption prosecution of New York Mayor Eric Adams earlier this year has been mischaracterized. Bove was accused of pushing a quid pro quo in which the Justice Department would drop its criminal case against Adams in return for the mayor supporting Mr. Trump’s immigration policies. Several prosecutors and Justice Department officials resigned in the fallout of Bove’s order to drop the case.
Bove told senators that the decision to seek to drop the charges against Adams was “well within the scope of prosecutorial discretion” and that Adams’ own court submissions and statements “refute false public allegations by third parties regarding some sort of improper quid pro quo.”
Bove was also accused of pressuring Justice Department employees to support the effort or face possible employment actions, an accusation he disputed in the questionnaire. “It was never my intention to coerce, pressure, or induce any DOJ attorney — through adverse employment actions, threats, rewards, or otherwise — to sign the motion to dismiss the charges against Mayor Adams,” he wrote.
Multiple Democratic senators pressed Bove in their questionnaire to clarify if Bove believes the Constitution permits Mr. Trump to run for a third term, despite the restrictions of the 22nd Amendment, which states that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
“As a nominee to the Third Circuit, it would not be appropriate for me to address how this Amendment would apply in an abstract hypothetical scenario,” Bove responded on multiple occasions. “To the extent this question seeks to elicit an answer that could be taken as opining on the broader political or policy debate regarding term limits, or on statements by any political figure, my response, consistent with the positions of prior judicial nominees, is that it would be improper to offer any such comment as a judicial nominee.”
When asked whether President Biden was duly elected in the 2020 election, Bove responded, “President Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and served as the 46th President of the United States,” adding that it “would be improper” for him to opine on “the broader political or policy debate regarding the conduct of the 2020 presidential election or on statements by any political figure.”
Bove wrote that he does not recall where he was on Jan. 6, 2021, and declined to answer if he would characterize the Capitol siege as an “insurrection.”
He also acknowledged that he provided Mr. Trump with legal advice about his pardons of those involved in the attack. When asked if he supported the pardons of violent Jan. 6 attackers, Bove wrote, “As I explained at my confirmation hearing, it would not be appropriate for me, as a nominee, to comment on President Trump’s use of the pardon authority.”
Bove’s responses noted his prior legal work as Trump’s defense lawyer, a role shared by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche. Bove wrote that the legal team “typically charged President Trump a discounted rate of $650 per hour for services by myself and Mr. Blanche.”
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the questionnaire. In an earlier statement to CBS News, White House spokesman Harrison Fields championed Bove’s qualifications for the lifetime appointment to the circuit court.
“Emil Bove is an incredibly talented legal mind and a staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution who will make an excellent circuit court judge,” Fields said. “Bove is unquestionably qualified for the role and has a career filled with accolades, both academically and throughout his legal career, that should make him a shoo-in for the Third Circuit. The President is committed to nominating constitutionalists to the bench who will restore law and order and end the weaponization of the justice system, and Emil Bove fits that mold perfectly.”
Scott MacFarlane is CBS News’ Justice correspondent. He has covered Washington for two decades, earning 20 Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards. His reporting has resulted directly in the passage of five new laws.
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