The United States Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for a prestigious and lifelong position as a federal appeals court judge.

The nomination of Emil Bove has stoked criticism from both Trump’s political opponents and, perhaps most notably, from the conservative legal establishment.

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While US presidents have wide-ranging powers to nominate federal judges, some have seen Bove as a harbinger of more ideologically driven appointments during Trump’s second term.

Critics have framed Trump’s actions as an attempt to mould the judiciary in the likeness of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Senate mustered a simple majority, 50 to 49, to confirm Bove’s seat on the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

With only two Republicans voting against the confirmation, some observers see little political will among the party to curtail Trump’s actions.

“This nomination threatens to portend a broader turn toward the appointment of result-oriented loyalists to the judiciary,” Gregg Nunziata, the executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, a conservative legal group, wrote in a letter to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.

He urged lawmakers to oppose Bove’s nomination. “In Mr Bove, the president believes he has found his MAGA warrior.”

Why is Bove controversial?

Despite a panoply of firebrand nominations, Trump’s decision to pick Bove stands out.

That is in part due to the longevity of the appointment, which will see the 44-year-old lawyer wield influence over federal appeals cases for decades in a region that covers Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

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Prior to joining Trump’s second term, Bove worked as the president’s personal lawyer, unsuccessfully defending him against criminal charges in New York.

But on January 20, Trump’s first day back in office, he named Bove to serve as acting deputy attorney general.

His actions in that role have fuelled outrage over what critics have called Bove’s dismal ethics record.

During his nearly six-month tenure, Bove has been the subject of at least three whistleblower complaints.

Some of the complaints relate to allegations that Bove sought to end the federal prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for a crackdown on migrants in the city – and that he later lied about it to the Senate.

Two of the whistleblowers, meanwhile, reported that Bove told members of the Department of Justice to defy court orders that ran contrary to Trump’s policies.

Bove’s comments allegedly included the advice to tell courts “f*** you” if they opposed Trump’s deportation efforts.

US media has further reported that Bove led a purge at the Justice Department against Trump’s perceived political opponents. They included career government employees involved in the prosecution of rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

During his Senate hearing, however, Bove categorically denied that he has acted as Trump’s “henchman”.

Still, Senator Lisa Murkowski, one of the two Republicans to oppose the confirmation, said the evidence presented in the chamber portrayed Bove as “somebody who has counseled other attorneys that you should ignore the law, you should reject the law”.

“I don’t think that that individual should be placed in a lifetime seat on the bench,” Murkowski added.

Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, in an interview with MSNBC after Bove’s confirmation, gave a more blunt assessment: “This is a genuinely bad guy.”

A new approach?

In his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump already helped to transform the US judiciary, appointing a total of 226 federal judges.

They include 54 appellate judges and three justices to serve on the nine-member Supreme Court.

Those appointments, largely based on chance vacancies, are almost always pulled from a pool of candidates approved by conservative groups like the Federalist Society.

That organisation has sought to reshape the country’s legal landscape with a rightward bent.

The Federalist Society says it advocates for “individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law”, and it has helped lay the groundwork for major conservative victories, including the overturning of Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that had protected the nationwide right to abortion access.

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But early this year, Trump signalled a break from the group, lashing out at its former leader, Leonard Leo, whom he called a “sleaze bag” and a “bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America”.

Trump argued that Leo had given him “bad advice”, leading him to appoint a Federalist Society-approved judge during his first term. That judge was among a panel that ruled against the president’s signature tariff policy in May.

While the Federalist Society has been conspicuously mum on Bove’s nomination, legal experts from both conservative and left-leaning circles have questioned whether his commitment to Trump would outweigh his commitment to jurisprudence.

Nunziata, from the Society of the Rule of Law, wrote that Trump’s past judicial appointees generally exhibited “judicial excellence and a commitment to the rule of law”.

“Many of them have proven their mettle in contentious litigation involving the president or his policies,” he explained.

But he proceeded to describe Bove’s conduct as “unthinkable” for a federal judge.

“The Bove nomination represents a stark and apparently intentional break from this successful model and should raise concerns across the ideological spectrum,” he wrote.

The progressive Alliance for Justice expressed a similar sentiment, writing that Bove’s “allegiance lies not with civil rights or the rule of law but with Trump and his authoritarian agenda to expand executive power far beyond the limits set by the Constitution”.

“Emil Bove’s record makes clear he is unfit for a lifetime seat on the federal bench.”

What comes next?

Trump’s attacks on the federal judiciary – aimed at judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike – have been unprecedented in their own right.

Judges have openly speculated that the Trump administration may be found in contempt for ignoring court orders. And Trump himself has openly criticised judges as “deranged” or “lunatic” for opposing his policies.

But it remains unclear if Trump’s caustic approach to the judiciary will manifest in more controversial appointments like Bove.

Some analysts noted that Trump has generally nominated judges from the more traditional conservative pipeline. It remains to be seen if Bove will be the exception or the start of a new trend.

Just this week, the Trump administration signalled it may continue to take an aggressive stance in its approach to the judiciary.

For example, the Justice Department filed a complaint on Monday that seeks to censure US District Court Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to block Trump-ordered deportation flights in March.

The complaint accused Boasberg of making inappropriate comments about the president’s administration, but critics see it as an effort to discredit a judge who has issued high-profile rulings against Trump.

On the day of Bove’s appointment, Trump also took aim at a Senate custom that gives the minority party – in this case, the Democrats – an opportunity to block some lower-level federal judicial and prosecutorial nominations.

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Under the so-called “blue slip” tradition, lawmakers are given the ability to veto the confirmation of federal district judges or federal prosecutors who will serve in their state. The practice, more akin to a gentleman’s agreement than an official policy, has long been seen as one of the last vestiges of bipartisanship in the US legislature.

While the custom does not apply to higher federal judges, including appellate or Supreme Court justices, its removal would make it easier for Trump to more fully assert his influence over all levels of the federal judiciary.

On Truth Social, Trump called upon Republican senators to end the tradition, which he called “ancient and probably Unconstitutional”, as well as a “hoax”.

With the “blue slip”, he added, Democrats “have an ironclad stoppage of Great Republican Candidates”.

Republican leaders in the Senate, however, have voiced reluctance to ending the tradition.