# Talk:Emil Bove

Danielle Sassoon, an Assistant United States Attorney, used her resignation letter to indirectly accuse Bove of obstruction of justice. Mostly on social media. I'm sure ‘traditional media’ will catch up tonight. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/13/politics/read-acting-us-attorney-resignation-letter-doj-response/index.html. Renard Migrant (talk) 00:23, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

You were correct. See: Danielle Sassoon and Hagan Scotten Wil540 art (talk) 02:04, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Basic information to add to this article (in order to help make it more properly encyclopedic): information about Bove's family background and ethnic heritage. Is he Italian American? 96.28.65.49 (talk) 00:20, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I was just wondering whether it is appropriate for Wikipedia to list in the "Quick facts" an office that the subject does not hold and to which the subject has not been confirmed. 
In this case, the person has not been confirmed by the Senate to the position, and there is substantial doubt he will be. 
Isn't listing the office in the absence of Senate confirmation likely to generate confusion about the facts pertaining to the subject of the article?

RoslinTollcross (talk) 21:44, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

@Davefelmer: Please explain where the controversy is in the Department of Justice (2025–present) section; I did a Ctrl + F search for "controversy" in the article, which returned no results. The sentence you are trying to add is WP:OR based on the material in the text, which does not indicate a controversy at all. The standard is for reliable sources to explicitly state that he had a controversial tenure or similar. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 03:36, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, besides the CBS source already cited ("... controversial nomination of Trump ally Emil Bove ..."), here are a few more examples of RSs describing his tenure, nomination and/or actions as controversial:
"... Emil Bove, his former personal lawyer-turned-controversial top Department of Justice official ... some of his most controversial actions will be put under the spotlight ... Democrats will likely look to scrutinize the controversial early actions he took as the acting official leading the DOJ ..." (1)
"... [Bove] has been at the center of a series of controversies during his brief tenure at the Justice Department ... Bove swiftly acknowledged the controversy surrounding his nomination. 'I am someone who tries to stand up for what I believe is right. I’m not afraid to make difficult decisions. I understand that some of those decisions have generated controversy.'" (2)
"... Emil Bove, President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and controversial pick for a judgeship on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ..." (3)
"... Emil Bove, President Donald Trump's controversial pick for a federal appeals judgeship in Philadelphia ... Bove’s nomination, announced last month, has been controversial ..." (4)
"...  Emil Bove, who as a high-ranking Justice Department official was behind the controversial move to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams ..." (5)
Why don't you just figure out a sentence to add to the body of the article, using one or more citations? FactOrOpinion (talk) 04:18, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
The CBS source, three, and four describe his nomination as controversial. We're only talking about his tenure at the Department of Justice here. As far as one, two, and five go, it would be better to go into detail into what those controversies are. The onus is on the person who added the statement, not myself for asking. I know what Dave is getting at, but what I need to know is if that can be supported by more references than a false one. Wikipedia doesn't work by what you personally feel about the content that's there. If there is no source that says someone's tenure is controversial—or rather in this case, only the ABC News source says that—then that shouldn't be included. I am treating this as an exact science because this is a BLP where each sentence must be adequately cited, not that shouldn't be the standard, either. It should also be noted that this is a GAN and this is certain to cause issue in a review, not the least because it isn't in the correct reference format and it should be supported in the article proper. I do not want to bear the blame of having this sentence on this article when I didn't write it. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 05:30, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
Re: it being better to go into detail into what those controversies are, the article does go into detail for some of them, such as the decision to dismiss Adams's case and associated resignations, and contravening Boasberg's order with the Alien Enemies Act flights. We could add more detail for those, such as Bove's alleged threat to all of the Public Integrity Section lawyers that unless someone in their office was willing to sign the Adams dismissal, they'd all be fired, Judge Ho being sufficiently concerned about the appropriateness of the Adams dismissal that he appointed Paul Clement to serve as amicus, Boasberg's ruling that the Venezuelans already deported under the AEA had been deprived of their due process rights, and SCOTUS stopping the government at 1a.m. in the morning from deporting others under the AEA because the insufficient notice would have violated their due process rights too.
In other cases, like firing the Jan. 6 prosecutors, I don't know if there's more detail to add. Maybe the fact that not only did he fire prosecutors who'd worked on J6 cases, but also demanded a list of the thousands of FBI agents who'd worked on any of the cases, to check whether any had "exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI," leading to a lawsuit from some FBI agents. I don't know how many were subsequently fired. And I'd have to think about whether there's relevant content that's totally absent right now. Maybe that enough former DOJ lawyers are concerned about what's occurred in the Dept. in the last 6 months that they've formed a non-partisan group to speak out against it and support others who leave; their efforts aren't claiming that Bove is responsible for all of their concerns, but they were concerned enough about his actions that they spoke out against his judicial nomination based on their experiences.
As for using "controversial" in the lead, my understanding of Davefelmer's argument is that we use our own language all the time in in summarizing what RSs have said, and we use our own language all the time in summarizing content in the body of an article when writing its lead, and that doesn't make the use of a specific word OR, as long as that word is a reasonable one to use in summarizing. My understanding of your stance is that you think using that word is OR if it is not used by sources.
Bove himself acknowledges that some of his actions "have generated controversy." And some more quotes from RSs:
"For the past six months, Bove has ... been embroiled in a series of major controversies." (6)
"Bove ... has been central to a number of high-profile controversies in the early months of the president’s second term." (7)
"Bove has been at the center of some of the Justice Department’s most controversial actions..." (8)
"Bove has been a controversial figure in the Trump administration since long before his nomination to the bench." (9)
"In his short time in the position, Bove took many drastic and controversial actions ..." (10)
"He reported for duty on Inauguration Day and soon made several controversial moves early in the new administration..." (11)
Would it be sufficient to change "His time at the Department of Justice has been controversial" to something like "While at the Department of Justice, he has been involved in several controversial controversial actions"? FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:16, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
Summarizing an article is different than making a statement that was not present in the article in any form. While I'm not sold on all of these sources, if there are sources to state that he was "involved in several controversial actions", let's use that terminology instead. In addition, I question why this is the third sentence in the lede. That suggests a level of prominence that is not there. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 15:31, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
It's relevant in the lead because half the text in the body covers the topic. Happy to amend the line to either of the variations proposed ("His time at the Department of Justice has been controversial" or "While at the Department of Justice, he has been involved in several controversial controversial actions") as a compromise for greater accuracy, but I stand by my summary note that we don't need to litigate every word of every line to make sure its exactly like in the source. Davefelmer (talk) 15:42, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
We do "need to litigate every word of every line to make sure its exactly like in the source" because this is a biography of a living person. I am not against mentioning it in the lede, but the structure of the lede is much different than what you're proposing. I wrote that lede with the intention of first covering Bove's positions and only his positions, then his early work and career, and then going further into his government positions. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 16:45, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
I've changed the placement of the sentence and changed the wording a bit. I added a couple of sentences to the section on his tenure about news outlets characterizing several of his actions as controversial, so that the lead follows the body. See what you think.
We should check for positive characterizations of him / his work, per NPOV. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:48, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
Looks fine. A third paragraph with information about his associate and deputy attorney general career is a fair enough compromise. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 04:30, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

You should be able to find/use video from his SJC hearing as confirmation of the pronunciation, as one of the Senators (Grassley?) asked him about the pronunciation at the beginning of the hearing. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

I looked at FJC site today and above not yet received his comission. I will not alter the table or the infobox, which contain a wrong info (he not received comission on August 4), but we should correct it later. 2804:14D:B489:8193:605F:D912:AF6F:B42A (talk) 17:32, 5 August 2025 (UTC)