Trump team revamps US Justice Department with his former personal lawyer at helm

New York: For two weeks President Donald Trump's new administration has been racing to remake the Justice Department tasked with US law enforcement. Leading the overhaul is Emil Bove, a lawyer who defended Trump in a criminal case stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.

Bove, 43, stayed largely in the background during last year's criminal trial, letting his co-counsel address the jury while their client, then a candidate for the White House, spoke to news cameras in the courtroom hallway.

Now as acting deputy attorney general, Bove has been front and center, signing his name to bold policy changes meant to remove what Trump calls political bias but which critics say threaten DOJ's traditional independence from the White House.

"If you want somebody who's going to hit the ground running, he's the guy," said Brendan Quigley, who in 2016 alongside Bove secured the trial conviction of two nephews of Venezuela's first lady on drug trafficking charges at the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan.

"He's not one to shy away from a fight," said Quigley, now a partner at law firm Baker Botts.

Bove is responsible for day-to-day operations of DOJ's more than 110,000 employees until Trump's permanent choice, Todd Blanche, is confirmed by the US Senate. Once Blanche, who also defended Trump in the hush money case, is confirmed, Bove is expected to work as his top deputy.

Late on Tuesday, the Republican-led US Senate confirmed Trump's pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi. The former Florida state attorney general, Bondi represented Trump during his first impeachment trial.

Before serving as a Trump defense lawyer, Bove had vast experience as a criminal prosecutor. He secured high-profile terrorism and drug trafficking convictions, and once supervised a case where an evidence misstep drew a judge's rebuke.

The temporary nature of Bove's appointment has not deterred him from implementing contentious changes to policies on two fronts: the probe of Trump supporters' Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and immigration enforcement.

Hours after entering the White House, Trump pardoned nearly all 1,590 people charged with rioting at the Capitol in a failed attempt to keep Congress from certifying former Democratic President Joe Biden's defeat of Trump, a Republican, in the 2020 election. Trump has vowed to seek retribution against perceived enemies.

In a Friday memo seen by Reuters, Bove ordered the firing of all prosecutors who had been hired on a probationary basis to work on Jan. 6-related cases. Last Thursday, he told the top federal prosecutors in each state to compile a list of all prosecutors and FBI agents involved in the Jan. 6 probe.

Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the US House of Representatives judiciary committee, on Friday called the targeting of Jan. 6 prosecutors and FBI agents a "repulsive affront to the rule of law."

Trump has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration and step up deportations. On Jan. 21, 2025, Bove's second day in the job, he instructed federal prosecutors to investigate local officials who refuse to assist federal immigration authorities.

Bove later announced an investigation of a local sheriff in upstate New York over the alleged release of an immigrant living in the US illegally. On Jan. 26, Bove traveled to Chicago to watch US officers arrest at least one migrant - an unusual move for a senior Justice Department official.

Raskin, a constitutional law professor for more than 25 years, said the immigration directives would lead to chaos and division.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

A conviction overturned

Bove worked at New York's Southern District, known for prosecuting high-profile financial crimes and national security cases, from 2012 through 2021. He secured the conviction of a former Honduran president's brother on drug charges and the guilty plea of a New York man who tried to support Islamic State.

In 2023, Bove teamed up with Blanche in the hush money case. Trump was ultimately found guilty. It was the first criminal conviction of a US president past or present. Trump is appealing.

While serving as co-chief of the terrorism and international narcotics unit, toward the end of his Southern District tenure, Bove supervised a case in which a banker's conviction on charges of violating US sanctions on Iran was overturned because prosecutors were found to have turned over a potentially exculpatory document to the defense too late.

Bove wrote in an October 2020 declaration that he first learned of the document after the trial prosecutors he oversaw had already turned it over mid-trial.

The judge in that case, Alison Nathan, wrote that the unit chiefs "appear to have offered little in the way of supervision," but found no proof prosecutors intentionally withheld documents. She urged the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) to probe potential misconduct.

OPR concluded that the conduct of members of the trial team was "flawed," but that none of the prosecutors engaged in "intentional or reckless misconduct," according to a November 2023 investigative summary and a person familiar with the matter.