Judge: Trump's US attorney in NJ serving unlawfully

What happened

A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Thursday that the Trump administration's appointment of Alina Habba as acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey was "unlawful" and all her actions since July 1, when he said her 120-day interim appointment expired, "may be declared void." Habba also "must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases," said the judge, Matthew Brann, though he paused his decision pending a Justice Department appeal.

Who said what

Brann's ruling "delivered a resounding rebuke to both Habba," a "partisan lightning rod" who previously served as President Donald Trump's personal defense lawyer, and the "Justice Department, which went to extraordinary lengths to keep her in the U.S. attorney job after New Jersey's federal judges last month voted not to retain her," The Washington Post said. The decision could also "reverberate across the country" because the DOJ has "used the same complex maneuvers to extend the tenures of other loyalists Trump has installed as interim U.S. attorneys in California, Arizona, New Mexico and New York."

"At its core," The Associated Press said, Thursday's ruling "took aim at the administration's strategy of using a string of temporary appointments" to bypass Senate confirmation. "Taken to the extreme," Brann said, the president could use a similar "novel series of legal and personnel moves" to seat U.S. attorneys "of his personal choice for an entire term without seeking the Senate's advice and consent."

The "fallout" from Brann's opinion "could be a staggering mess across the executive branch," and it's also "unclear from the ruling who should be in charge of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office," Politico said. After the New Jersey federal judges replaced Habba with Desiree Grace, a "respected Republican career prosecutor" who was serving as her deputy, Attorney General Pam Bondi "quickly fired" Grace and appointed Habba to the No. 2 slot.

What next?

Bondi said the Justice Department would "immediately appeal" Brann's ruling, calling the former Republican politico and Federalist Society member an "activist" judge.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up