Bypassing Habba, Judges in New Jersey Name New Top Federal Prosecutor

New York Times

6 days ago

A panel of federal judges in New Jersey on Tuesday blocked Alina Habba from staying in the job as the state's interim U.S. attorney and instead invoked a rarely used power to select a candidate of their own to take over as the state's top federal prosecutor.
The judges announced that they had appointed Desiree Leigh Grace, a seasoned prosecutor whom Ms. Habba named as her first assistant soon after she took over in March. The appointment is effective as of Tuesday, according to an order signed by the district's chief judge, Renée Marie Bumb.
The unusual decision by the district court judges came hours before Ms. Habba's 120-day temporary term was set to expire and could be undone by President Trump, who selected Ms. Habba for the job and has assumed closer control of the Justice Department than any other president in the past half century.
A similar showdown took place last week in a federal prosecutors' office in Albany, N.Y. There, after judges refused to extend the temporary term of John A. Sarcone III, another embattled top prosecutor appointed by Mr. Trump, the Justice Department named him 'special attorney' to Pam Bondi, the attorney general.
The appointment gave Mr. Sarcone the powers of a U.S. attorney and is 'indefinite,' according to a letter from the Justice Department's human resources division that was obtained by The New York Times.
Ms. Habba, Mr. Trump's former personal lawyer, had no experience as a prosecutor or in criminal law before the president appointed her to the temporary post.
She had been nominated by Mr. Trump to remain in the job permanently, but her confirmation faced headwinds in the U.S. Senate after New Jersey's two Democratic senators said she had pursued 'frivolous and politically motivated' prosecutions and 'did not meet the standard' to become a U.S. attorney.
Ms. Habba is one of several of Mr. Trump's former defense lawyers to serve in top Justice Department positions. And she has used the traditionally nonpartisan position to pursue several investigations into prominent Democrats.
Less than two months into her tenure, Ms. Habba, 41, charged Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark and Representative LaMonica McIver, both Democrats, after a clash with federal immigration agents outside a detention center they were seeking to tour in Newark.
Ten days later, Ms. Habba moved to drop the trespassing charge Mr. Baraka faced — a sequence of events that led a federal court judge to publicly criticize decision makers in the office. Mr. Baraka is now suing Ms. Habba for malicious prosecution.
Todd Blanche, a deputy U.S. attorney general who was previously Mr. Trump's criminal defense lawyer, praised Ms. Habba on Sunday night in advance of a meeting by the New Jersey district court judges on Monday.
Ms. Habba has the 'full confidence' of the president, Mr. Blanche wrote in a social media post. 'District judges should use their authority to keep her in place,' he added.
It is not unheard-of for district court judges to appoint interim U.S. attorneys to the job permanently. That's what happened in 2018, during Mr. Trump's first term as president, when New Jersey judges named Craig Carpenito, then the interim U.S. attorney, as the state's top federal prosecutor.
Across the river, in the Southern District of New York, judges voted unanimously in 2018 to install Geoffrey S. Berman as U.S. attorney. (Mr. Berman was later fired by Mr. Trump after he said he would stay in his job despite efforts by a former U.S. attorney general, William P. Barr, to remove him.)
But it is far less common for federal judges to identify a candidate on their own, as is authorized by a federal statute, according to Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
Ms. Habba had met with the judges who held the power to extend her term to try to persuade them of her competence.
But her efforts had largely fallen flat, according to several prominent lawyers in the state with knowledge of the discussions.