Justice department’s bizarre maneuver to keep Trump’s lawyer in power destroyed by federal judge

A federal appeals court has ruled that Alina Habba, a former personal lawyer to President Trump, was unlawfully appointed as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey and has disqualified her from supervising active cases. This unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a major setback for the administration, which has been trying hard to install its preferred loyalists into key U.S. Attorney offices across the country.

This whole situation is pretty wild, especially because it upheld a previous ruling made by U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann back in August. Judge Brann had already found that the Trump administration violated federal appointments law when they originally named Habba as the acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, per Reuters.

It’s no secret that the administration has faced challenges getting its appointees confirmed, but the lengths they went to in this specific case are truly remarkable. U.S. Attorneys are typically nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. While temporary appointments are allowed under certain laws, the Justice Department tried a series of complicated maneuvers to keep Habba in power even after local judges rejected her.

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The conflict started when judges on New Jersey’s District Court decided they wouldn’t extend Habba’s interim appointment. Instead, they named her top deputy, Desiree Grace, a career federal prosecutor, as her successor. What did the Justice Department do next? They fired Grace and immediately tried to reinstall Habba. That’s a tough look, and defense lawyers were quick to argue that these actions improperly bypassed the Senate confirmation process, potentially allowing a prosecutor to serve indefinitely.

The Justice Department tried to argue that the appointment was still lawful because Attorney General Pam Bondi granted Habba authority under a second title: “special attorney.” Clearly, the appeals court wasn’t buying it.

This decision is definitely a significant rebuke to President Trump and the Justice Department. Judge D. Michael Fisher, writing in the ruling, didn’t mince words about the situation. He noted, “It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place.” He added that the administration’s efforts to elevate its preferred candidate “demonstrate the difficulties it has faced.”

For the federal legal system in New Jersey, this ruling is going to cause some serious headaches. It’s likely to impact scores of active federal criminal cases, meaning the Justice Department now has to scramble to find a new, properly appointed prosecutor to supervise them. The administration does have the option to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but that doesn’t solve the immediate crisis.

This isn’t an isolated incident, either. This ruling is the first one made by a federal appeals court regarding the administration’s attempts to install temporary U.S. Attorneys, but other courts have already pushed back hard.

Just last week, a federal judge dismissed criminal cases brought against two high-profile Trump adversaries, former FBI Director James Comey and New York state Attorney General Letitia James. The judge in that case found that the Trump-aligned prosecutor who brought those charges had also been unlawfully appointed. Judges have also rejected U.S. attorney appointments in Nevada and the Central District of California in recent months.

For the defendants challenging Habba’s authority, this is a major win for due process. Lawyers representing Cesar Pina, a criminal defendant facing charges including wire fraud and money laundering, welcomed the decision. His attorneys, Abbe Lowell, Gerry Krovatin, and Norm Eisen, released a joint statement saying the decision shows that President Trump “cannot usurp longstanding statutory and constitutional processes to insert whomever he wants in these positions.”