At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) questioned Emil Bove, nominee to be to be United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit, and current Deputy AG.
00:00Mr. Bovet, I was just listening to my colleague Senator Kennedy's questions, and one of your answers was that you felt that these charges should be dropped against the mayor because he was campaigning, it would interfere with his campaigning, it would interfere with his ability to do your job.
00:18So then is it your position that that's the reason that you shouldn't be able to ever prosecute any elected officials, regardless of party, because it might interfere with their campaigning if they commit murder, if they are committing a major white collar crime, if they are taking bribes, that the reason is that they're campaigning because they're always campaigning, Mr. Bovet.
00:41So I was just stunned by that answer.
00:44I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be stunning, Senator.
00:47I think it's a fact and circumstances determination.
00:50It's case specific.
00:51In that particular case, based on the charges and the manner in which the case was pursued, I did think that there was, and the department thought, for the reasons we laid out in our brief, that the prosecution placed an inordinate burden on the mayor's ability to protect the city and to campaign in an ongoing election cycle.
01:11I just think this would be a reason.
01:12And it's like there would be two classes of justice, you know, one for people who are in office and one for everyone else, if that's an argument you use.
01:20And isn't it true on February 10th that you ordered the bribery case against the mayor be dismissed?
01:26And I quote your letter to then acting U.S. attorney Sassoon, without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.
01:36That's what you said, correct?
01:39The determination was based on the policy considerations that I've outlined and did not rely on that.
01:44By your own written admission, though, you failed to assess the merits of the case and ordered that the bribery charges dismissed entirely for these reasons so he could campaign.
01:54That's not true, Senator.
01:55That's inaccurate.
01:56I did look at the evidence, and that's why I spent extensive time reviewing the case file, meeting with the prosecutors alone, meeting with them with the defense counsel.
02:05In the department's decision making, we chose to proceed based on the policy determinations that I've outlined and not the strength of the evidence or concerns about the legal theory.
02:15In your letter to then acting U.S. attorney Sassoon, you ordered her to drop the case because you were, quote, concerned about the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Adams' ability to support, end quote, the president's immigration agenda.
02:29Is that correct?
02:32Yes.
02:32Yes.
02:33Okay.
02:35When you appeared in court to file your motion to dismiss, the court stated that your efforts to dismiss the case were unsupported by any objective evidence and, quote, fundamentally incompatible with the basic promise of equal justice under law.
02:51Is that what the court said?
02:54I don't recall the court saying that at the hearing that I attended.
02:58To the extent the court wrote something like that in the opinion, that was an opinion that granted the motion.
03:03And I think the context is really important, Senator.
03:05The context is that Rule 48 doesn't require the department to provide any evidence.
03:11It requires a nonconclusory explanation by the prosecutors of the reason for dismissing a case.
03:16Okay, well, let's go over what Hagan Skotin, who was the lead prosecutor on the case.
03:21Is that right?
03:23I think that's right, yes.
03:24He decorated Iraqi war veteran, clerked for then Judge Kavanaugh on the D.C. circuit, and then Justice Roberts.
03:32So, in his letter, he says that Damian Williams' role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys.
03:51This was your reasoning, because you said you felt that the former U.S. attorney somehow tainted this case.
03:59But yet, as Hagan Skotin pointed out, it was pursued under four different U.S. attorneys.
04:05He said that this reasoning is so weak as to be transparently pretextual.
04:12Why do you think he said that?
04:13So, I'd like to begin by just confirming that I respect Hagan's military service and his public service.
04:22And the fact that we disagree on this particular issue is not meant to disparage him in any way.
04:28However, the department filed a brief explaining and elaborating on the basis for a motion.
04:34In that brief, we outlined private communications and comments on documents by the prosecutors, including Mr. Skotin.
04:40One of those communications, private communications, Mr. Skotin said that he found it plausible that Damian Williams proceeded based on political motivations.
04:50So, what he said publicly is not consistent with what the trial team was thinking privately contemporaneous with these events.
04:58Okay, I will again go back to the fact that I don't think that the reason that someone is running for office or is, has some policy agreement or disagreements with the administration should be a reason to bring or dismiss charges.
05:12And he also added, no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges or the stick of threatening to bring them again to induce an elected official to support its policy objective.
05:25He then ended, as I'm sure you realize, he ended with, I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me.
05:39So, my concern with what happened here and then also with the decision to fire January 6 prosecutors is basically the same.
05:51I am a former prosecutor myself, I ran the biggest prosecutor office in our state, and every single day you're confronted with issues of ethics and maybe you know someone you're prosecuting, maybe someone knows someone you're prosecuting, maybe they agree with you, maybe you don't.
06:04And you have to make a decision based on the law and the facts and not on whether or not they agree with your administration.
06:10And when I look, we heard from, yes, Chairman Grassley, two more sentences, when we heard from former prosecutors who were dismissed because they'd simply done their job in looking at what happened on January 6th, I just think it's part of the same threat.
06:26It's politics over the law, and it should be law over politics.
06:29Senator Moody.
06:31It's a good thing I wasn't holding that gavel.
06:33Good to be with you, thank you for being here, thank you to your family for being here.
