At the Court of Trump: who is Emil Bove III, deputy minister of justice (and former Tycoon lawyer)

This article on Emil Bove III is published in the number 12 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until March 18, 2025.

There was a time when Donald Trump He kept the photo of Roy Cohnthe very dreaded lawyer who grew up at the school of the paranoid senator Joseph McCarthy, matured in that of the corrupt Richard Nixon and inevitably ended up defending the most unscrupulous building in New York. To the opponents who annoyed him, Trump simply showed the face of his protector. The image was enough to silence anyone. Homosexual and persecutor of homosexuals, a lawyer hated by lawyers, Cohn has gone directly from the news to the legend, becoming the object of grandiose literary and cinematographic representations, up to the perfect interpretation of Jeremy Strong in the movie The apprentice.

Now Trump no longer needs photographs, it is enough for him to show the government of the most powerful country in human history he keeps in the pocket. But if he had a portrait in his wallet, it would be that of Emil Bove III43 years old, deputy minister of justice who, until confirmation of his superior, has held both hands on the operations of the department, giving orders to a Army of 110 thousand investigators.

Trump chose it because It was his lawyerthe most aggressive of the legal team that with very rough methods managed to hinder and curb all its processes, bringing it unscathed to the elections, and therefore toimmunity. Everything was admitted to arrive for the purpose: in one case he managed to delay three weeks accusing the prosecutor, against any logic, of having hidden some tests. According to the defensive line, Joe Biden was the coordinator of a persecution campaign carried forward through a network of politicized judges. Incidentally, his current superior to the department, Todd Blanche, is the founder of the law firm of which Bove was a partner, the headquarters of the president’s defense. The defenders have become the attackers.

Bove, evidently, he agreed to continue serving his client’s interestseven if it now represents the state as a prosecutor. Before even he was a deputy prosecutor in the southern district of New York, where he dealt with terrorism and international drug trafficking. In those days he spent his days send letters “designed to intimidate” The colleagues of the other departments involved in the investigation, the former prosecutor John Fishwick Jr. told, who described him as “abrasive” and equipped with a style “directed disarmingly”.

Legend has it that when the general prosecutor appointed by Trump in the first term, Jeff Sessionscorrectly recused as part of the investigation by the special prosecutor Robert Mueller on Russian interference, a trump imbufalito thundered: «Where is my Roy Cohn?». That is, where the unscrupulous man who tramples on any institutional protocol, bends all the rules, makes a mockery of the orders of the judges, erases the lines from the codes, He corrupts who servesthe man who will use and abuse the law to defend me from enemies? Sessions was a political ally, but He had the lack of believing in the law. Here is finally his new Roy Cohn, in flesh, bones,
dark circles and reverse bite.

Bove grew up in the town of Seneca Falls, in the state of New York, in a branching Dynasty of professionals – doctors and jurists abound – with a certain prestige and local influence. His father has been a deputy attorney general of New York. He studied at the University at Albany, with forgettable academic resultsbut he was first of all captain of Lacrosse’s team, team sports vaguely similar to Hockey on Prato which in the American code is the sign of the elite. After the legal school in Georgetown, he made the classic path for ambitious lawyers: practice in the most prestigious studies alternating with the experience in the offices of the judges of the high courts. In 2012 he married Sarah Kwai Lin Samisprofessional in the complicated world of health that also collaborated with the office of the mayor of New York. Understandably, he decided to keep his surname as a unmarried, in contrast to the American custom of acquiring that of the husband.

In less than a month from the Bove settlement, he established himself how The person who hurls the dirtiest of the dirty affairs on behalf of the president. The first action was to order the dismissal of all the prosecutors involved in the trials of the assaults of January 6, to which in the meantime Trump has granted one grace without distinctionsincluding the hundreds who declared themselves guilty of having committed violence. Bove issued threatening memo, chased eight FBI officials, guilty of having contributed to the convictions, claimed from bureau The names of all the agents involved in the event to be able to draw up detailed proscription lists.

Tireless, he went from a hunt for the culprits to clemency to recruit political allies. He offered the mayor of New York, Eric Adamstotal protection from the heavy accusations of corruption against him in exchange for the support for the policy of deportations and repatriation of the White House. Salvation from the court in exchange for political genuflection. Last month Bove incredibly ordered with a letter to the Manhattan prosecutor, Danielle Sassoonto archive a case that in a few months would have reached trial. At the expense of Adams there are very serious charges, but for Bove they are only politically motivated investigations. Too bad that the mayor is a democrat. But friends must be kept near and even closer enemies, he teaches Don Vito Corleone, and the prosecutor follows the maxim with zeal and cheekiness.

Nixon’s men at least tried to cover the traces of their messages. Bove, as a true son of Trump who is, does not take care of the forms, and so he put in writing what was the reason why the The first citizen of New York had to be saved from the judicial gallows: “The current investigation has unduly decreased the ability of Mayor Adams to devote his total attention and his resources to illegal immigration and violent crimes”.

In short, the problem of the investigation is that prevents the mayor from carrying out the agenda of
Trumpand when the persecuted Adams will finally be able to do it, he will know who to thank. The prosecutor did not escape the sense of speech, and resigned after sending a letter of fire to the general prosecutor, Pam Bondi. He told, among other things, that Bove and his men met the Adams team several times to discuss the exchange, and claimed that no one took notes to avoid leaving a trace of a possible political agreement. The corrupt negotiated – let’s not forget – took place in front of the eyes of the prosecutor who offended the mayor.

One followed burst of resignation and appeals to the Ethics Commission of the Department. On March 5, the democratic members of the Justice Commission in the Senate formally asked the Department of Justice to open a disciplinary investigation, which could be a nice paradox of those who like Trump: Bove could be the subject of an investigation that belongs to the department that he himself directs.

At the time of the Trump, the these conflicts diluted as they are used in the context of the rule of law, that is, by resorting to a independent judgment. In Trump II there is no room for these old customs. If Elon Musk He can send letters of dismissal to those who seem to him, the lawyer-minister of Trump can without too many worries to judge a disciplinary procedure against himself. Bove has no reputation problems. He was prosecutor and lawyer, and is detested by both categories. Once the former prosecutor Ken White said: “This asshole would be kicked by a common pit because it ruins the atmosphere.”

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