Senators have faced plenty of controversial judicial nominations in recent memory, but Emil Bove — a former criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump, whom the president tapped for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals — is arguably the most controversial of them all.

Given the degree to which Bove’s nomination has been mired in scandal, there was some hope that at least one Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee might agree that it’d be a mistake to give Trump’s former lawyer a lifetime position on the federal appellate bench.

That didn’t happen. NBC News reported:

A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley says that Bove’s nomination had been reported out of committee to the full Senate, even though Democrats on the committee walked out in protest of the lack of debate and the refusal to hold a vote on whether to hold a hearing with a whistleblower before they voted.

Shortly before the vote, the panel’s Democratic members walked out of the hearing room in protest, with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey describing the process as “insane.”

In fact, after the committee’s Republicans voted in support of Bove, members of the Democratic minority, led by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, suggested the issue of whether Bove was actually reported out was still an open question and may be referred to the Senate parliamentarian because, as Democrats argued, Republicans broke procedural rules.

Stepping back, when the president first announced Bove’s nomination in May, he claimed his former defense attorney is “respected by everyone.”

All things considered, “everyone” was a poor choice of words.

When Bove worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, for example, he earned a reputation as an unprofessional and abusive prosecutor. He parlayed this background into a role as a Trump defense attorney, punctuated by his defeat in the Stormy Daniels case, which paid dividends: Trump rewarded Bove with a powerful position in the Justice Department, where he fired federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and helped oversee the scandalous dismissal of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case.

Just as importantly, if not more so, Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran Justice Department prosecutor, recently came forward as a whistleblower to tell senators that Bove repeatedly endorsed ignoring court orders and deliberately misleading judges. In a case involving the Alien Enemies Act and the administration’s alleged violation of a court order regarding deportation flights, Reuveni also described a meeting during which Bove “stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘f— you’ and ignore any such court order.”

The nominee denied the whistleblower’s allegations, but internal documents released by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats appeared to bolster Reuveni’s allegations.

In case this weren’t quite enough, in his post-hearing written Senate questionnaire, Bove declined to rule out the possibility of the president running for a third term — despite the plain language of the U.S. Constitution — and did not denounce the insurrectionist Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Given all of this, opposition to Bove’s judicial nomination from outside Capitol Hill was overwhelming and unprecedented: Several dozen former judges and more than 900 former Justice Department lawyers pleaded with the Senate to oppose the nominee.

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted for him anyway.

Bove’s nomination now advances to the Senate floor for confirmation. To defeat him, four GOP senators would have to break ranks with the party, which seems unlikely. Watch this space.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.