Judges' move to oust Trump US attorney pick Habba triggers a showdown
Federal judges in New Jersey declined Tuesday to appoint Alina Habba, President Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney in the state, to continue serving in that role, delivering a resounding rebuke to one of his administration’s most polarizing Justice Department appointees and teeing up a showdown over who would lead the office.
A panel of the state’s U.S. district court judges made the announcement in a brief order that did not offer any explanation for its decision. The order—signed by Renée Marie Bumb, the chief federal judge in the state—appointed Desiree Leigh Grace, a career prosecutor whom Habba had named as her first assistant, as her replacement.
But within hours, top Justice Department officials announced they had fired Grace and reinstated Habba “pursuant to the president’s authority.”
“This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges—especially when they threaten the president’s core Article II powers,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. Bondi referred to the constitutional provision that grants presidents broad decision-making authority, which the Trump administration has cited as justification for many of its most controversial moves.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the panel led by Bumb, an appointee of President George W. Bush, of acting like “activists” and enacting a “left-wing agenda.”
The rapid-fire developments threw the leadership of the Garden State’s top federal law enforcement agency into chaos and raised the prospect of yet another showdown between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary. As of Tuesday evening, it was not clear whether—or how—the judges would seek to enforce their order or whether Grace’s firing necessarily invalidated their appointment of her.
Grace had worked as a line prosecutor in the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office for nearly a decade before rising to positions leading the office’s violent crime unit and its criminal division. Habba selected her as her deputy earlier this year.
Habba—a former personal lawyer for Trump and a prominent surrogate for him on the campaign trail—did not return requests for comment Tuesday.
Her contentious, roughly three-month tenure as acting U.S. attorney has seen her open investigations into the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general as well as file felony assault charges against a Democratic member of Congress. Trump has since nominated her for a full four-year term in the role.
But the Senate has not yet acted on the nomination, and New Jersey’s senators Cory Booker (D) and Andy Kim (D) have said they won’t support her over concerns that Habba has acted as a “partisan warrior” instead of a fair-minded arbiter of justice.
The judges’ order Tuesday to replace Habba said it was effective as of that day, or upon expiration of her appointment as acting U.S. attorney. But even that question over timing set off a dispute with the Justice Department earlier Tuesday.
Under federal law, interim appointments for U.S. attorney posts last 120 days or until the Senate confirms a presidential nominee to the role. If a nominee is not confirmed within that window, district court judges are empowered to appoint someone to serve until that happens.
In a March 24 social media post, Trump named Habba to lead the New Jersey office on an acting basis, saying the decision was “effective immediately”—suggesting that period ended Tuesday. Blanche, however, asserted Habba’s term officially expires at 11:59 p.m. Friday, pegging the timeline instead to when she was sworn in on March 28.
“The district court judges in NJ are trying to force out [Habba] before her term expires,” he wrote on X. “Their rush reveals what this was always about: a left-wing agenda, not the rule of law. When judges act like activists, they undermine confidence in our justice system. Alina is President Trump’s choice to lead-and no partisan bench can override that.”
The judges’ decision not to reappoint Habba while her nomination remains pending, while unusual, is not without precedent.
Last week, district court judges in the Albany-based Northern District of New York declined to permanently appoint acting U.S. attorney John A. Sarcone III to the role after the expiration of his 120-day interim term.
Justice Department officials responded by appointing Sarcone as a “special attorney to the attorney general” as well as the office’s first assistant U.S. attorney, a move the department said “indefinitely” granted him the authority of acting U.S. attorney.
Like Habba, Sarcone lacked significant prior experience as a prosecutor when Trump appointed him to his position. His immediate previous job was as a regional administrator for the General Services Administration, which manages government-owned properties.
Sarcone’s tenure was marked by several unusual incidents, including in June, when he said a knife-wielding undocumented immigrant from El Salvador had tried to kill him outside an Albany hotel. Surveillance footage later released by investigators showed the man did not come close to Sarcone with his weapon, and charges brought by local prosecutors were downgraded from attempted murder to a misdemeanor.
This month, Sarcone told a local TV station that the district’s judges had extended his tenure as U.S. attorney. Within hours, the district’s judges issued a statement saying they had made no such decision and, days later, they opted not to reappoint him.
Before Trump appointed Habba in New Jersey, she was heavily involved in his legal matters in New York, including defending him against a defamation lawsuit brought by author E. Jean Carroll.
Throughout that trial, a senior New York judge criticized Habba for her ignorance of court procedures and at one point threatened to jail her for interrupting the proceedings and rebuffing court orders.
Her tenure as acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey was no less contentious. Shortly after her appointment, she told a right-wing news outlet that, in her role, she aimed to help “turn New Jersey red,” referring to the color typically associated with Republicans.
“I think New Jersey is absolutely close to getting there,” she said. “So, hopefully, while I’m there, I can help that cause.”
In April, she told Fox News her office had launched an investigation of Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and Attorney General Matthew Platkin over New Jersey’s directive to local law enforcement not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Then in May, prosecutors under her direction filed charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver, both Democrats, after a scuffle erupted with immigration agents during a congressional oversight visit to a privately run detention facility in Newark.
Though Habba’s office continues to pursue a felony assault case against McIver—charges the congresswoman’s lawyers have derided as an act of “political retaliation”—prosecutors quickly and without explanation dropped trespassing charges they’d filed against Baraka.
The federal magistrate judge overseeing the case blasted Habba’s about-face and questioned why prosecutors had brought the charges in the first place, given their quick decision to abandon them.
“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” U.S. Magistrate Judge André M. Espinosa said. “Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law, to the pursuit of truth and to the upholding of due process for all.”
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who follows presidential appointments, said he’d never seen anything like the Justice Department’s maneuvers to keep Sarcone and Habba in place and said they could complicate federal prosecutions in both districts.
“If a person purporting to act as the U.S. attorney signs a criminal complaint or an indictment but lacks the authority of the office … defense counsel may choose to challenge that action,” he said.
The White House said Tuesday that Habba enjoys Trump’s “full confidence” and that he stands by his decision to nominate her.
Habba’s “work as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey has made the Garden State and the nation safer,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email. “The Trump Administration looks forward to her final confirmation in the U.S. Senate and will work tirelessly to ensure the people of New Jersey are well represented.”
Shayna Jacobs in New York contributed to this report.
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