A Democratic lawmaker who participated in a walkout Thursday during a confirmation hearing for a Trump-nominated judge called Republican leadership’s conduct during the meeting “a serious, unprecedented” breaking of committee rules.
“This was a serious, unprecedented rule-breaking to jam this guy through,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), speaking on CNN Thursday.
Several Democratic lawmakers walked out of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier Thursday during a confirmation hearing for Emil Bove, principal associate deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, who President Donald Trump nominated for the Third Circuit in the US Court of Appeals.
Bove, who a whistleblower complaint claimed openly urged DOJ staff to defy court orders related to halting deportation flights of migrants, has had his confirmation opposed by Democrats, who attempted to use committee rules in their favor Thursday by objecting to Bove’s confirmation.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) attempted to initiate the objection to Bove’s confirmation, as is his right under committee rules, only to be interrupted by the committee chair, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who ignored Booker’s request and carried on with Bove’s confirmation.
“They could have tabled Sen. Booker, they could have simply voted him down, but instead of doing that, they just called the vote while he was talking,” Whitehouse said.
“So you have the clerk of the court starting to call the vote, interrupting a speaking United States senator in violation of an existing rule, and that was like 'okay, we've put up with enough of this,' so we got up to get out to take away the quorum.”
And while the walkout didn’t stop Bove’s confirmation from moving forward, Whitehouse slammed the Republican-led process as being “highly suspicious” given the circumstances surrounding the Trump pick for a lifetime federal court position.
“It's highly suspicious because it's happening side by side with this effort to have Trump judges bottle up the hearing in court, the contempt hearing in court that would reveal Bove's role in that incident where they were planning to disobey court orders and tell courts, 'F you,’” Whitehouse said.
