Judges vote to not keep Habba as interim US attorney of New Jersey
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.
The court instead appointed the office's No. 2 attorney, Desiree Grace, the order said.
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.
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.
(This story has been refiled to capitalize US in the headline)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
16 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trump's Golden Dome to undergo crucial test
A major defense contractor has announced plans to conduct space-based tests on President Donald Trump 's Golden Dome within the next three years. Lockheed Martin, one of the Pentagon 's prime military contractors responsible for the F-35 fighter jet and Black Hawk helicopters, will demonstrate a space-based interceptor missile by 2028, the company has announced. Lockheed is now quickly creating command and control (C2) capabilities to aid in Trump's Golden Dome initiative, the company announced this week. 'Golden Dome for America is a challenge unlike anything attempted at this scale or on this timeline, and we're moving fast to bring together connected C2 capabilities that work now,' Thad Beckert, Golden Dome C2 director at Lockheed Martin, said in a press release. The Golden Dome is projected to cost around $175 billion in total and take three years to be ready, Trump has said, though analysts expect the project to cost more and take longer. Whichever Pentagon contractor can successfully prove a reliable ability to shoot down incoming advanced missiles first could win billions in funding, meaning the race to shoot down missiles in space is on. Congress has already approved $24.4 billion worth of Golden Dome funding in Trump's recently passed domestic policy agenda dubbed the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill.' An estimate from the Arms Control Center shows that the total funding for the project could reach up to $500 billion. The Congressional Budget Office also estimates that the project could cost up to $540 billion over the next two decades. 'We have missile warning and tracking satellites made by Lockheed Martin in orbit today that provide timely detection and warning of missile threats,' said Amanda Pound, mission strategy and advanced capabilities director at Lockheed Martin Space, told Fox News Digital this week. 'We are committed to making space-based interceptors for missile defense a reality, leveraging our decades of experience, investments, and industry partnerships, to be ready for on orbit testing in 2028.' Trump first announced the Golden Dome initiative in May, expressing his desire to create a system similar to Israel's Iron Dome, which has proved vital in its war with Hamas. 'This is very important for the success and even survival of our country. It's a pretty evil world out there,' he said. 'Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they're launched from space. And we will have the best system ever built.' Trump declared that the establishment of the Golden Dome would provide 'close to 100 percent protection' of the U.S. and is 'very important for the success and even survival of our country.' The missile defense system, along with others, has been praised for shooting down ballistic missiles launched at the country from Iran and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The U.S. Golden Dome project will feature a vast array of sensors, satellites, land and space-based weapons that all work together to identify and neutralize targets. 'This rapid C2 prototyping effort is one among many within Lockheed Martin demonstrating how we can support the US Government as a Golden Dome for America mission partner,' said Daniel Nimblett, Vice President of Layered Homeland Defense at Lockheed Martin. He said the project aims to deliver 'real-time situational awareness' and 'informed decision-making to defend the nation.' Lockheed demonstrated its ability to intercept hypersonic medium-range missiles in March after testing its Aegis Combat System aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer. Previously, a similar effort was launched in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan called the Strategic Defense Initiative, which was later dubbed 'Star Wars.' That ambitious plan sought to similarly install space-based defense systems. However, it was eventually scrubbed due to inadequate technology and ballooning costs.
Economist
18 minutes ago
- Economist
The long-term effects of hunger in Gaza
FOR two weeks, the world has claimed it is working to end the widespread hunger in Gaza. The UN is pleading with Israel to allow more lorries of aid into the territory. Arab and Western states are airdropping food. On August 5th Donald Trump said America would take a larger role in distributing aid, though he was vague about the details. 'I know Israel is going to help us with that in terms of distribution, and also money,' he said. Yet on the ground, Gazans say little has changed. There is not enough food entering Gaza, nor is there law and order to allow its distribution. Airdrops are hard to reach. Convoys are looted soon after they cross the border. Finding food often requires making a risky trip to an aid centre, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent months, or paying exorbitant sums on the black market. This is a calamity in its own right, one that will have long-term consequences for many Gazans, particularly children. But it is also a glimpse of Gaza's future. Even after the war ends, it will remain at the mercy of others for years to come. Wedged between Israel and Egypt, the tiny territory was never self-sufficient. Its neighbours imposed an embargo after Hamas, a militant group, took power in 2007. The economy withered. Half of the workforce in the strip was unemployed and more than 60% of the population relied on some form of foreign aid to survive. The UN doled out cash assistance, ran a network of clinics that offered 3.5m consultations a year and operated schools that educated some 300,000 children. Still, Gaza could meet at least some basic needs by itself. Two-fifths of its territory was farmland that supplied enough dairy, poultry, eggs and fruits and vegetables to meet most local demand. Small factories produced everything from packaged food to furniture. The Hamas-run government was inept, but it provided law and order. After nearly two years of war, almost none of that remains. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says that Gaza's 2m people need 62,000 tonnes of food a month. That is a bare-bones calculation: it would provide enough staple foods but no meat, fruits and vegetables or other perishables. By its own tally, Israel has allowed far less in. It imposed a total siege on the territory from March 2nd until May 19th, with no food permitted to enter. Then Israel allowed the UN to resume limited aid deliveries to northern Gaza. It also helped establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy outfit that distributes food at four points in southern and central Gaza. In more than two months of operation, it has handed out less than 0.7 meals per Gazan per day—and that assumes each box of aid, stocked with a hotch-potch of dried and canned goods, really provides as many meals as the GHF claims it does. All told, Israel permitted 98,674 tonnes of food aid to cross the border in the five months through July, an average of 19,734 tonnes a month—just 32% of what the WFP says is necessary. Although the volume of aid has increased in recent days, it is still insufficient. 'We're trying to get 80 to 100 trucks in, every single day,' says Valerie Guarnieri of the WFP. 'It's not a high bar, but a realistic bar of what we can achieve.' On August 4th, though, Israel allowed only 41 of the agency's lorries to enter a staging area on the Gaza border, and it let drivers collect just 29 of them. Getting into Gaza is only the first challenge. Distribution is a nightmare. Since May 19th the UN has collected 2,604 lorryloads of aid from Gaza's borders. Just 300 reached their intended destination. The rest were intercepted en route, either by desperate civilians or by armed men. Aid workers are nonchalant about civilians raiding aid lorries, which they euphemistically call 'self-distribution': they reckon the food still reaches people who need it. 'There's a real crescendo of desperation,' says Ms Guarnieri. 'People have no confidence food is going to come the next day.' But the roaring black market suggests that much of it is stolen. Gaza's chamber of commerce publishes a regular survey of food prices (see chart). A 25kg sack of flour, which cost 35 shekels ($10) before the war, went for 625 shekels on August 5th. A kilo of tomatoes fetched 100 shekels, 50 times its pre-war value. Such prices are far beyond the reach of most Gazans. Those with a bit of money often haggle for tiny quantities: a shopper might bring home a single potato for his family, for example. Israel's ostensible goal in throttling the supply of aid was to prevent Hamas from pilfering any of it. Earlier this month the group released a propaganda video of Evyatar David, an Israeli hostage still held in Gaza. He was emaciated, and spent much of the video recounting how little he had to eat: a few lentils or beans one day, nothing the next. At one point a militant handed Mr David a can of beans from behind the camera. Many viewers noted that the captor's hand looked rather chubby. As much of Gaza starves, Hamas, it seems, is still managing to feed its fighters. The consequences of Israel's policy instead fall hardest on children—sometimes even before birth. 'One in three pregnancies are now high-risk. One in five babies that we've seen are born premature or underweight,' says Leila Baker of the UN's family-planning agency. Compare that with before the war, when 8% of Gazan babies were born underweight (at less than 2.5kg). There were 222 stillbirths between January and June, a ten-fold increase from levels seen before the war. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed outfit that tracks hunger, said last month that 20,000 children were hospitalised for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. Even before they reach that point, their immune systems crumble. Moderately malnourished children catch infections far more easily than well-fed ones, and become more seriously ill when they do, rapidly losing body weight. The body takes a 'big hit' when food intake falls to just 70-80% of normal, says Marko Kerac, a paediatrician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who has treated children in famine-stricken places. Most children in Gaza are eating a lot less than that. In July the World Health Organisation reported an outbreak of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease that may have links to hunger. Gaza's health ministry says cases are multiplying, including among children. Give us our daily bread Nor is calorie intake the only concern. Although flour and salt in Gaza are fortified with some vitamins and minerals, such as iodine, they are consumed in limited amounts—especially now, since many bakeries have been closed for months, owing to a lack of flour and fuel. In February, during the ceasefire, Israel allowed 15,000 tonnes of fruits and vegetables and 11,000 tonnes of meat and fish into Gaza. Since March it has allowed just 136 tonnes of meat. All of this means there is widespread deficiency of essential nutrients that help children's brains develop. Every child in Gaza, in other words, will remain at lifelong risk of poor health because of today's malnutrition. There is consistent evidence for this from studies of populations that have lived through famine: during the second world war, the 1960s famine in China and, more recently, places like Ethiopia. Children who have suffered acute malnourishment have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases as adults. They are also at risk of worse cognitive development. A flood of aid cannot undo the damage, but it can prevent it from getting worse. It will have to be sustained. The devastation wrought by Israel's war has left Gazans with no alternative but to rely on aid. In February the UN estimated that the war had caused $30bn in physical damage and $19bn in economic disruption, including lost labour, forgone income and increased costs. Reconstruction would require $53bn. At this point, that is little more than a guess. The real cost is impossible to calculate. But it will be enormous. The first task will be simply clearing the rubble. A UN assessment in April, based on satellite imagery, estimated that there were 53m tonnes of rubble strewn across Gaza—30 times as much debris as was removed from Manhattan after the September 11th attacks. Clearing it could be the work of decades. The seven-week war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, the longest and deadliest before the current one, produced 2.5m tonnes of debris. It took two years to remove. Rebuilding a productive economy will be no less difficult. Take agriculture. The UN's agriculture agency says that 80% of Gaza's farmland and 84% of its greenhouses have been damaged in the war. Livestock have been all but wiped out. A satellite assessment last summer found that 68% of Gaza's roads had been damaged (that figure is no doubt higher today). The two main north-south roads—one along the coast, the other farther inland—are both impassable in places. Even if farmers can start planting crops for small harvests after the war, it will be hard to bring their produce to market. The picture is equally bleak in other sectors: schools, hospitals and factories have all been largely reduced to rubble. The Geneva Conventions are clear that civilians have the right to flee a war zone. Exercising that right in Gaza is fraught: Palestinians have a well-grounded fear that Israel will never allow them to return. Powerful members of Binyamin Netanyahu's government do not hide their desire to ethnically cleanse the territory and rebuild the Jewish settlements dismantled in 2005. Still, the dire conditions have led some people to think the unthinkable: a survey conducted in May by a leading Palestinian pollster found that 43% of Gazans are willing to emigrate at the end of the war. Mr Netanyahu may not follow through on his talk of reoccupying Gaza, which he hinted at in media leaks earlier this month. His far-right allies may not fulfil their dream of rebuilding the Jewish settlements dismantled in 2005. In a sense, though, the ideologues in his cabinet have already achieved their goal. Israel's conduct of the war has left Gazans with a grim choice: leave the territory, or remain in a place rendered all but uninhabitable. ■
Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
BMW driver, 23, accused of mowing down four sorority sisters in horror Malibu crash hires hot-shot defense lawyer for murder trial
The young BMW driver accused of mowing down and killing four sorority sisters in a horrific Malibu car crash pleaded not guilty as he appeared in court with his new hot-shot defense attorney Wednesday. Fraser Bohm, 23, was arraigned on murder and vehicular manslaughter charges in connection with the October 2023 deaths of Pepperdine University students Asha Weir, Peyton Stewart, Deslyn Williams, all 21, and 20-year-old Niamh Rolston. Dressed in a dark gray suit and tie, he did not speak as his new lawyer, Alan Jackson, entered the not-guilty pleas to four counts each of charge on his behalf at a courthouse in Van Nuys, California. The hearing lasted only a few minutes, during which Judge Thomas Rubinson granted the defense's request for a postponement to September 5. Wednesday's arraignment follows a delay granted last month, when newly-hired Jackson requested a continuance. Outside the courtroom, Jackson explained that he plans to raise 'several issues' at the next hearing, including filing a motion to reduce Bohm's $4million bail package that was granted after his arrest in 2023. Asked when he expects Bohm's jury trial to start, the renowned lawyer told Daily Mail: 'The prosecution has a head start on us and we have a lot of work to do to catch up. So I can't see trial starting before the end of 2025.' The prominent criminal defense attorney, who replaces Bohm's original lawyer Michael Kraut, is a former LA County Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted several high-profile cases, including the murder conviction of music producer Phil Spector. Since going into private practice, he's made a name for himself as a top defense attorney. Most recently, he successfully got murder suspect Karen Read acquitted in the widely-covered trial related to the death of Boston Police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe. All four of the young women killed in the Malibu crash were seniors at Pepperdine's Seaver College of Liberal Arts where they were members of the Alpha Phi Sorority. They were due to graduate with the class of 2024 and later were awarded their Pepperdine degrees posthumously. They died when Bohm – driving allegedly at 104mph – crashed into three parked vehicles in the parking lane next to where the girls were walking after getting out of a car on PCH where the speed limit is 45mph. 'They were killed because of the driving of the defendant,' Deputy District Attorney Nathan Bartos told an April preliminary hearing where Bohm was ordered to stand trial. Bartos pointed out that data retrieved from the 'black box' in the BMW showed that the vehicle accelerated from 93mph to 104mph just two and a half seconds before the crash. 'He consciously decided to get that vehicle up to the speed of 104 miles an hour,' the prosecutor added. 'And he lost control of his vehicle….. This was not an accident.' Peyton Stewart (left) and Asha Weir were members of Alpha Phi at Pepperdine University - and were pronounced dead alongside their two friends at the scene Bohm – who lives in Malibu – has maintained that the deadly crash was an accident that happened when 'some guy' in a white car swerved into his lane, hitting his driver's side mirror, causing him to slam into the three parked cars. And his then defense attorney, Kraut, argued that at the time of the crash, Bohm was being 'chased in a road-rage incident'. But LA Sheriff's investigators said they found 'no evidence of an alleged road-rage incident.' At the preliminary hearing, Kraut called Bohm a 'kid', emphasizing that the fatal pile-up occurred on the day after his 22nd birthday and there was 'no evidence of a past history of any driving violations or a parking violation.' The deadly crash sparked outrage from Malibu residents who have for years been calling for safety improvements to this stretch of PCH between Carbon Canyon and Las Flores Canyon where 53 deaths and 92 serious injuries between 2013 and 2023 earned it the nickname 'Dead Man's Curve.' On the one-year anniversary of the girls' deaths, Malibu officials met to discuss ways to improve safety and creating a California Highway Patrol Task Force to crack down on speeders and traffic offenders on PCH And recently, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new bill authorizing the installation of speed cameras on a 21-mile stretch of PCH all the way through the ritzy, celebrity-filled enclave. The city has also been considering an even more ambitious plan that would completely redesign PCH, 'transforming it from a high speed highway into a safer, community-focused corridor, providing safe access for all users, including pedestrians, cyclists and drivers.' Such safety measures come too late for the grieving parents of the victims. They have all brought wrongful death lawsuits against Bohm and are also suing the State of California, LA County, the City of Malibu and the California Coastal Commission, alleging dangerous road design on PCH and lack of safety standards. Bohm, whose father Chris is an executive at a medical equipment manufacturer, had appeared in court for his arraignment hearing last month – his first court date since he was ordered to stand trial after a three-day preliminary trial in late April. The former high school athlete, however, did not enter an official plea after his lawyer requested more time. Daily Mail previously revealed that Bohm had received the luxury vehicle in his parents' divorce settlement on his 18th birthday. The red 2016 BMW was purchased by Bohm's mother Brooke using a down payment of $25,000 in 2017 – with the remaining installments paid by his dad Chris. The divorce settlement also revealed details of his family's lavish lifestyle – including the secluded $8.7 million Malibu gated estate Bohm's mother ended up with in the divorce. His BMW slammed into parked vehicles while the college seniors stood nearby – striking them as well. All four victims were pronounced dead at the scene, while Bohm was uninjured. Following the crash, as ambulances took the women's dead bodies from the scene, Bohm was seen sitting on a ledge, bowing his head, next to emergency personnel. According to witnesses, he had attempted to flee the scene and had to be 'tackled down' and stopped by students from the nearby Pepperdine Sigma Chi fraternity. Officials said there was a fraternity party being held in the area, and that the victims had been planning to meet up with others at the time of the tragedy. Niamh, Asha, and Peyton all lived together in college, their social media pages suggested.
