This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes.

Earlier this week, Todd Blanche was sworn in as the newest attorney general of the United States. Administering the oath of office to Blanche, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s criminal defense lawyer, was another former member of Trump’s legal team: Judge Emil Bove, whom Trump nominated in 2025 to a life-tenured seat on the Third Circuit. 

For both Blanche and Bove, the reunion must have been a real treat. Three years ago, they were unknown New York City-area law firm partners taking a long-shot bet on a disgraced ex-president who stood accused of, among other things, sexually assaulting a magazine writer, storing classified government documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom, making illegal hush money payments to kill an unflattering news story about his philandering, and trying to fraudulently overturn his loss in the 2020 election in Georgia. (That last list item should not be confused with separate federal charges stemming from Trump’s involvement in efforts to foment a violent insurrection and overthrow the government on January 6.)

Thanks in part to the work of Blanche and Bove, though, none of those cases resulted in meaningful consequences for Trump. And now that he is president again, their respective appointments are best understood as hard-earned rewards for their troubles. After Bove finished conducting Blanche’s swearing-in ceremony Monday, the two former colleagues got to hug it out in the Oval Office as their bored-looking benefactor clapped politely.