Judge Bove faces complaint for attending "highly political" Trump speech

Emil Bove, a federal appeals court judge who previously served as President Trump's personal attorney, is accused of an ethics violation for attending the president's rally-style speech Tuesday night. Why it matters: The complaint from a watchdog group alleges that Bove's presence at the event runs afoul of two clear pillars of judicial ethics: to avoid impropriety and political activity. It could result in disciplinary action.Bove's office told Axios he did not have a comment when reached Thursday. The White House directed Axios to a social media post from White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, who told a user questioning Bove's attendance to "Stop ... pearl-clutching."Driving the news: Fix the Court, a watchdog and advocacy group, alleged that Bove violated multiple sections of the governing Code of Conduct for U.S. judges in a judicial misconduct complaint filed Wednesday."There is no prohibition, of course, against a federal judge attending an event at which a President is speaking," wrote Gabe Roth, the group's executive director, in the complaint addressed to Chief Judge Michael Chagares. However, the president's Pennsylvania event — billed as a celebration of his economic wins that turned into a campaign-style speech with attacks on the "radical left" — represented "a far cry from the State of the Union or a state dinner for its abject partisanship," Roth writes.He argued it "should have been obvious to Judge Bove, either at the start of the rally or fairly close to it, that this was a highly charged, highly political event that no federal judge should have been within shouting distance of.""Last night's event in Pennsylvania was barely distinguishable (i.e., only temporally) from a Trump rally in 2020 or 2024, both of which were obvious political activities," Roth wrote.The other side: Bove reportedly told a reporter from MS NOW at the event that he attended "just ... as a citizen coming to watch the president speak."The reporter shared a clip of Bove in the crowd as Trump called for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a U.S. citizen from Somalia, to "get the hell out" of the country.The big picture: Critics of Trump's move to nominate Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit have questioned Bove's ability to be impartial on the bench.Before he was narrowly confirmed, Bove was tied to a number of Justice Department controversies, including the push to dismiss corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.Trump said Bove would "do anything" necessary as a federal judge to "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN."At the same time, the White House has repeatedly attacked what it sees as "activist judges" whose orders and rulings have stymied the president's agenda.Go deeper: Trump stacks DOJ with his former personal lawyersEditor's note: This story was updated with a response from Bove's office and the White House.