Democrats stormed out of a turbulent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday to protest a roll call vote advancing Emil Bove’s nomination to be a judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

The frustrated minority members had been using all available tools to block the nomination of Mr. Bove, who was nominated to the Third Circuit bench by President Trump in May. 

Mr. Bove spent years as the president’s personal attorney and then became a sort of enforcer at the Department of Justice, where he currently serves as principal associate deputy attorney general. He was responsible for killing the criminal case against Mayor Adams earlier this year, thereby earning the mayor’s cooperation in the administration’s mass deportation operation. 

Thursday’s party-line vote approved sending Mr. Bove’s name to the floor for consideration, over angry objections from the minority members.

Senators were still speaking about the slate of nominees that was before them when the chairman of the committee, Senator Grassley, abruptly called up the vote on Mr. Bove’s nomination.

Exasperated Democrats exploded, with Senator Booker insisting that under committee rules, “we have the right to continue to debate this nomination.” Unmoved, the committee clerk continued to call senators’ names and Republicans dutifully responded with their votes. 

Mr. Booker had also made a motion to hear from a justice department whistleblower who claims that Mr. Bove floated the idea of openly defying court orders, among other things, in order to advance the Trump agenda. That official, Erez Reuveni, was fired by the justice department after he admitted in court that the Trump administration mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 

With the roll call still proceeding, Senator Schiff pushed for a motion to call Mr. Reuveni to testify. Mr. Grassley responded to him, Mr. Booker, and other protesting Democrats by banging his gavel and dryly declaring: “You’re out of order.”

“There’s no need to rush this. What are we afraid of?” Mr. Booker asked, growing increasingly frustrated. “We’re simply asking for a credible amount of time to air our concerns before the vote. We respect each other in this committee.”

“You are out of order,” Mr. Grassley said again as Mr. Booker continued.

“This is absolutely insane. What is the rush?” Mr. Booker exclaimed. 

“You are interrupting the roll call,” Mr. Grassley shot back. 

Mr. Booker again demanded more time to debate, even as the roll call concluded and Mr. Grassley declared that Mr. Bove’s nomination was headed to the floor. The Republican chairman then called up a vote on the next nominee, at which point the Democrats got up and walked out of the committee room. 

“This is a kangaroo court. This is what we have here, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Hirono said as she got up to leave. 

After the committee had voted on the remaining nominees, Mr. Grassley told his Republican colleagues he had simply followed the precedent set by the Democrats when they controlled the committee under the leadership of Senator Durbin. 

“I’d like to have everybody that’s here know that what happened here today is no different than what happened when Democrats cut off debate on Judge Kasubhai and Judge Lee,” Mr. Grassley said, referring to committee votes in 2024 and 2023 on two of President Biden’s court nominees. Mr. Durbin limited debate on those two nominees in order to speed up the process, just as Ms. Grassley did for Mr. Bove on Thursday. 

“If you’ll spread that word that this is not unprecedented — either the actions of the minority walking away or what we did here as a majority. It’s happened before, and we have to move things along,” Mr. Grassley said to those of his colleagues who were still in the room.