Judges reject Trump's pick for top New Jersey federal prosecutor, DOJ removes successor

Reuters

5 days ago

WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department accused a panel of New Jersey federal court judges of political motives for declining to permanently appoint President Donald Trump's former lawyer Alina Habba as the state's top federal prosecutor.
The judges on the U.S. District Court in New Jersey named Desiree Grace, the second highest-ranking official in the U.S. attorney's office, to replace Habba on Tuesday. Hours later Attorney General Pam Bondi said Grace also had been removed.
"This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President's core Article II powers," Bondi wrote in a post on X, referring to Trump's authority under the U.S. Constitution.
Federal law allows district courts to intervene if an interim U.S. attorney has not received Senate approval within 120 days.
Habba has been serving as New Jersey's interim U.S. attorney since her appointment by Trump in March, but was limited by law to 120 days in office unless the court agreed to keep her in place. The U.S. Senate has not yet acted on her formal nomination to the role, submitted by Trump this month.
Habba and Grace could not be immediately reached for comment.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement on X that the U.S. District Court in New Jersey was trying to "force" Habba out of her job before her term expires at 11:59 p.m. on Friday.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York last week declined to keep Trump's U.S. attorney pick John Sarcone in place after his 120-day term neared expiration.
Sarcone managed to stay in the office after the Justice Department found a workaround by naming him as "special attorney to the attorney general," according to the New York Times.
The Justice Department cannot make a similar arrangement for Habba, however, because federal law prohibits the government from appointing someone to serve in an acting capacity if the individual was already nominated by the president to serve in that role.
Habba's brief tenure as New Jersey's interim U.S. attorney included the filing of multiple legal actions against Democratic elected officials.
Her office brought criminal charges against Democratic U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver, as she and other members of Congress and Newark's Democratic mayor, Ras Baraka, tried to visit an immigration detention center.
The scene grew chaotic after immigration agents tried to arrest Baraka for trespassing, and McIver's elbows appeared to make brief contact with an immigration officer.
Habba's office charged McIver with two counts of assaulting and impeding a law enforcement officer. McIver has pleaded not guilty.
Habba's office did not follow Justice Department rules which require prosecutors to seek permission from the Public Integrity Section before bringing criminal charges against a member of Congress for conduct related to their official duties.
Habba's office also charged Baraka, but later dropped the case, prompting a federal magistrate judge to criticize her office for its handling of the matter.
Until March, Habba had never worked as a prosecutor.
She represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room.
In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1 million for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump's reputation in the investigation into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.