Harry Litman - It Takes a Government

The rule of law took it on the chin this Tuesday.

First, Emil Bove’s confirmation delivered a lifetime judicial appointment—and potential Supreme Court candidacy—to a spectacularly unqualified nominee. In his brief tenure as Donald Trump’s personal fixer inside the Department of Justice, Bove amassed a record of bullying career attorneys and disregarding legal norms, including, according to multiple whistleblowers, ordering DOJ attorneys to defy court orders.

Second, later that same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a silly judicial misconduct complaint against D.C. Chief Judge Jeb Boasberg. The complaint parroted Trump’s relentless attacks on Boasberg, whose rulings in the Alien Enemy Act cases have become a flashpoint for MAGA ire. It was a textbook hatchet job—long on insinuation, short on substance.

Bondi and Bove were the lead antagonists in the day’s events, and multiple commentators have already documented their grave failings. But they are, in many ways, cartoon villains—drawn with two strokes: total faithlessness to law, and total loyalty to Donald Trump.

https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/it-takes-a-government