Trump Looks to Fill Delaware Circuit Seat After Bove Pick (1)

The White House is actively looking to fill the open Delaware seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit after President Donald Trump announced plans to nominate his former personal attorney Emil Bove to a second seat on the court.

Trump hadn’t indicated which of the two Third Circuit vacancies Bove would be nominated for, but New Jersey Democratic Sens. Andy Kim and Cory Booker said it was their understanding that he was chosen for the seat in their state, based on their communications with the White House Counsel’s office.

On the Delaware vacancy, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said his chief counsel has been in “regular contact” with the White House Counsel’s office about the seat.

Some conservatives have urged Trump to move the court’s open Delaware seat to another state in the circuit, such as Pennsylvania, citing a smaller pool of conservative talent in Delaware. But at least for now, the White House has no plans of doing that, according to a person familiar with the administration’s process.

The White House has interviewed multiple people from Delaware or with Delaware ties for the seat, the person familiar with the process said. “As far as I know, they haven’t interviewed anyone from Pennsylvania,” they said.

Judge Kent Jordan, an appointee of George W. Bush, who previously served as a federal trial court judge in Delaware, retired from the Third Circuit in January.

The White House declined to comment on the Delaware vacancy.

Bove would replace Judge Joseph Greenaway Jr., an Obama-appointee who retired from the Third Circuit in 2023.

New Jersey Vacancy

Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) told Bloomberg Law that the White House had reached out “early on” about the New Jersey vacancy and “said that they wanted to work closely with us and to consult with us,” which included asking for recommendations. Kim said he forwarded names he felt came “from more Republican conservative backgrounds.”

The announcement of Bove as the White House’s final choice wasn’t a surprise, Kim said, as he was among the names the administration had put forward. “But we have not had the chance to be able to interview some of the other names that were out there,” Kim said.

“This is my first time going through this, but I very much think that that’s something that we need to be able to go through and make sure we’re approaching this dutifully,” said Kim, who was elected in 2024 after the resignation of Bob Menendez.

Circuit nominees no longer require support from their home-state senators to advance, after the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee eliminated the requirement during Trump’s first term. Republican senators complained about a lack of consultation about circuit nominees put forward by former President Joe Biden.

Kim and Booker called Bove a “deeply polarizing choice” in a joint statement.

President Joe Biden’s choice for the New Jersey Third Circuit seat, Adeel Mangi, who would have been the first Muslim federal appellate judge, generated unease among some Democrats amid conservative-led allegations that he’d affiliated himself with antisemitic and anti-police groups.

Mangi decried the “farcical attacks” he said were “intended to make it intolerable for Muslims proud of their identity to serve this nation. It will fail.”

Other Seats

Trump’s first circuit court nominee of his second term, Whitney Hermandorfer, who would serve on the Sixth Circuit, is scheduled to appear Wednesday at her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. There is also a vacancy on the First Circuit where Judge William Kayatta Jr. took senior status.

Mangi and Julia Lipez, President Joe Biden’s nominee to Kayatta’s seat, didn’t get floor votes last year as part of a deal which allowed for the confirmation of several district court nominees.