Former DC prosecutors say Tillis’ staff uncooperative ahead of controversial vote
A group of retired assistant prosecutors from the District of Columbia said that Sen. Thom Tillis and his staff refused to meet with them ahead of a vote on a controversial nomination by President Donald Trump to serve as a Court of Appeals judge.
“I think he’s ghosting us,” said Daniel Toomey, a former assistant federal prosecutor.
President Donald Trump nominated Emil Bove to serve a lifetime judgeship on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which encompasses Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Bove currently serves as principal associate deputy attorney general.
Bove’s nomination has led to widespread backlash from prosecutors across the country, who have concerns about Bove’s record, which includes the dismissal of charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
The group that reached out to Tillis hoped to appeal to his distaste for the actions on January 6, 2021, when insurrectionists tried to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president.
Bove directed Ed Martin, Washington’s interim U.S. attorney, to fire prosecutors who worked on cases involving January 6 defendants.
The prosecutors who reached out to Tillis believed they could appeal to the North Carolina senator on this matter because Tillis stopped Trump’s nomination of Martin to serve as Washington’s top prosecutor. Tillis said then that he opposed Martin’s nomination because “Congress needed to be clear that what happened on that day was wrong.”
Tillis also said that if Martin was nominated for any position outside of Washington, he probably would have confirmed the nomination.
On Wednesday night, Tillis told McClatchy he had several people trying to approach him about different concerns on Bove.
“I haven’t seen any first-hand corroboration and some of this feels like breaking Kavanaugh-esque sort of attempts,” Tillis told McClatchy, referencing the Supreme Court justice, who faced sexual assault allegations during his confirmation hearing. “Absent some kind of corroborating account, I’m not interesting in participating in the rumor mill.”
Prosecutors fired in the wake of January 6
On Thursday morning, Tillis sat in the hearing for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary with a Monster energy drink next to him. Senators had just finished a marathon session of votes that lasted into the early morning.
And tension was high in the meeting.
“Does anybody really believe that if I was convinced that Bove had made any statements condoning the violent acts against Capitol police officers that I’d be voting for him,” Tillis asked in the hearing, before the vote. “Just ask Ed Martin whether or not that’s a red line. The fact of the matter is, I can’t find one piece of evidence where he said that the violent act against police officers were OK or condoned. If you find it, let me know...”
That didn’t sit well with Toomey, the former assistant federal prosecutor.
In a call to McClatchy, Toomey quoted a memo dated Jan. 31, 2025, between Bove and Martin that read, “In an executive order issued on Jan. 20, 2025, President Trump appropriately characterized that work, as having grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years.”
“That great national injustice was the prosecution of the insurrectionists and that’s why these prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington were fired,” Toomey said. “How much clearer can it be than that?”
Why didn’t Tillis meet with Toomey?
Toomey said a group of retired Washington assistant prosecutors repeatedly contacted senators and their staff from the members of the judiciary committee to talk with them about the Bove and Martin nominations, but it was Tillis’ staff that dodged them and went as far as calling Tillis’ team “uncooperative.”
“We don’t meet with Daniel Toomey because he is an angry partisan whose logical thinking skills are compromised by his animosity towards President Trump, which is validated by the statement he gave to you,” said Daniel Keylin, Tillis’ senior advisor.
In a final moment of outreach to Tillis by Toomey and Chuck Work, another former Washington assistant prosecutor, they commended Tillis for “his principal refusal to vote” for Martin.
“Voting for Bove is completely inconsistent with your refusal to vote for Martin,” they wrote. “You said the President’s January 20th pardon of all the insurrectionists ‘sucked.’ Only 11 days later, Bove directed Martin to fire the AUSAs in DC who prosecuted the insurrectionists.”
They urged Tillis for a meeting before of the committee met at 9:15 a.m. Thursday, but never heard back.
“There’s no rational or moral distinction between Martin’s or Bove’s actions,” Work and Toomey wrote in their letter.
The meeting Thursday morning became heated, and Democrats walked out after accusing Republicans of rushing the vote.
Republicans proceeded with the vote despite Democrats’ absence. Republicans said Bove received a favorable report by the committee and it will move to the floor for final approval by the full Senate body.