These 3 Trump picks could be absolute poison for the justice system
Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
Everybody hates Emil
What’s it like having more than 900 former employees from your current job write a letter saying you shouldn’t get to be a judge? Does it feel worse or better than over 75 former state and federal judges writing a letter saying that you shouldn’t be a judge? Emil Bove gets to find out which stings more, since both letters were sent to the Senate in opposition to Bove’s nomination to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. How dare they interfere with Bove’s reward for having been one of President Donald Trump’s many criminal defense attorneys?
Regrettably, we’re long past the point where Bove’s track record of allegedly demanding his employees defy federal court orders would be enough of a reason for Senate Republicans not to confirm him. However, the GOP knows full well that Bove is an absolutely appalling candidate and the best approach was to simply break the rules and jam Bove through the Senate Judiciary Committee by refusing to let Democrats even air their objections, so this now moves to the whole Senate. There, the GOP will likely confirm Bove, because they will do whatever Trump wants and have given up on the whole advice and consent thing.
Related | Democratic senators are fed up with GOP colleagues’ bullsh-t
Trump’s D.C. prosecutor pick not exactly a champion of law enforcement
Jeanine Pirro, last seen pitching a fit about bottled water, provided written answers ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing as Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Her answers did not exactly instill confidence that Pirro, who is vying to be the top prosecutor, backs the blue. Or perhaps it’s just that Pirro has an incredibly faulty memory, which also seems like a suboptimal feature for a United States attorney.
“I am also not aware that ‘rioters who were convicted of violent assaults on police officers’ were given ‘full and unconditional pardons,’” she said in her written statement, regarding the cases around the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Huh. You’d think she’d have seen that, what with it being covered everywhere and her having had a job in TV news.
Pirro also apparently couldn’t recall saying, on her own radio program, that DOJ prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases should be criminally charged.
Ultimately, none of Pirro’s shortcomings mattered to the Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as they advanced her nomination to the full Senate. Going to be so terrific to have another election denier in the administration, right?
DOJ working on what really matters: forced assimilation
Given that it isn’t really enforcing civil rights or voting rights, the DOJ has plenty of time for a project that is sure to increase efficiency and should definitely be a top priority: overseeing a government-wide effort to eliminate multilingual services.
You may be thinking this doesn’t sound like something the DOJ should be overseeing, what with its job as the nation’s top cop and enforcer of civil rights, but somehow folks at the DOJ have time on their hands, despite the fact that they’ve lost thousands of employees. Nonetheless, they’re making the implementation of Trump’s racist, nativist executive order proclaiming English as the official language of the United States.
According to the DOJ, eliminating multilingual services will force people to assimilate, but it sure looks intended to make it harder for non-English speakers to navigate the government.
Judicial ethics, DOJ style
The Trump administration is continuing its quest to frame lower courts as a threat to the rule of law. The rest of us know that the only truly lawless court here is the U.S. Supreme Court, which is giving Trump whatever he wants and kneecapping the lower courts in the process.
This time around, it’s the DOJ whining that a judge said something true about the administration’s actions.
At the March 2025 Judicial Conference, the policymaking body of the federal courts, a leaked memorandum obtained by hard-right rag The Federalist alleges that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told Supreme Court Justice John Roberts that his colleagues were “concern[ed] that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis.”
Well, yes? Like, multiple times? Like, in front of Boasberg just about a week later, when they defied his court order to turn around the deportation planes bound for Venezuela? A DOJ whistleblower provided emails showing that Emil Bove, currently on the threshold of a lifetime seat on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, told DOJ attorneys they would need to weigh telling the courts “fuck you” and ignore a court order.
To be scrupulously fair to conservatives—a grace they extend to no one else—Boasberg’s reported comments at the Judicial Conference slightly predated the plane-deportation case. However, by the time of Boasberg’s reported remarks, there was already litigation about Trump’s illegal removal of members of independent agencies, challenging the administration’s expedited removal process and funding freezes. With the administration fighting those every step of the way, often relying only on the assertion that if the president does it, it’s legal, it isn’t surprising that judges were concerned about the possibility of defying court orders.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, another of Trump’s former criminal defense lawyers, is running around framing Boasberg’s mild comments as evidence that judges are biased against Trump. Hilariously, the Federalist’s post also complains about how this is extra-unfair because Trump is also a personal defendant in multiple lawsuits, and how dare the courts not treat him well. Not sure why the fact that the president is mired in personal lawsuits matters here.
There’s also the whole thing of how The Federalist obtained the memorandum on which Blanche’s breathless accusations are based. The Federalist doesn’t link to the memorandum, nor does it explain how it got it. It raises a real possibility that a conservative judge or judicial branch employee leaked a confidential memo to an outlet that is mostly known for things like spreading misinformation about COVID-19, complaining that racial justice protests are offensive to white people, and pushing lies about voter fraud.
Though Blanche contends that Boasberg’s comments represent “a threat to the rule of law.” But everyone knows what the real threat is: a lawless president, aided by a lawless Supreme Court.
New Trump-appointed judge will keep bigotry alive
The Senate on Monday confirmed Whitney Hermandorfer as Trump’s first judicial appointee, so the next day, she finally withdrew as counsel for Tennessee in their amicus brief supporting Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. Hermandorfer’s other hits include defending abortion bans and attacking the Biden administration for the sin of trying to ease discrimination against transgender people. In other words, she’ll fit right in with the rest of Trump’s appointees.
You can be sure she’s ready to jump right into pushing the Trump agenda by the fact that she won’t say Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.