The Justice Department is picking a fight with federal judges in New Jersey who moved to oust Alina Habba from her job as top prosecutor as soon as her tenure expired.
Shortly after news broke Tuesday that the president’s former personal attorney would be replaced by her top deputy, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the department had intervened on Habba’s behalf and fired her replacement.
“This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers,” Bondi said in a statement. Lashing out at “politically minded judges” who “refused” to keep Habba on the job, Bondi did not identify Habba’s replacement, Desiree Leigh Grace, by name, instead referring to her as the “First Assistant.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — another former defense attorney for Trump — piggybacked on his boss’s announcement, noting that Habba’s rival had been removed “pursuant to the President’s authority.”
The attorney general legally cannot fire a U.S. Attorney appointed by the federal judges, though the president can. Unless Trump formally steps in to dismiss Habba’s replacement, however, she is still set to take over Habba’s duties on Saturday.
Appointed on an interim basis last spring, Habba was nominated by Trump for a full four-year term, but her nomination has stalled in the Republican-led Senate. Interim U.S. Attorneys can serve for only 120 days unless they’re confirmed by the time that term expires or district court judges vote to extend their term. In this case, the judges opted not to keep Habba around and instead to replace her with Grace, a nine-year career prosecutor.
That was despite Trump apparently directing his deputy attorney general to pressure New Jersey’s chief federal judge to keep Habba in her position last week. Judge Renée Marie Bumb nonetheless went on to write up the order to have Habba replaced.
Habba, who got her start as an attorney representing a parking-garage company, was appointed to the job despite having no experience as a prosecutor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her tenure at the U.S. Attorney’s office is said to have alienated prosecutors there so much that many were looking for an off-ramp. She made no secret of using the office to satisfy Trump’s political agenda, prompting a scolding from a federal judge in one high-profile case that saw trespassing charges filed and then quickly dropped against Newark’s Democratic mayor Ras Baraka over an ICE protest.
Habba also faces a possible ethics investigation over allegations she used her office to go after Trump’s opponents.
Trump has yet to publicly comment on the fate of the prosecutor chosen over Habba, but the White House issued a statement suggesting he was confident the Senate would ultimately confirm Habba. Aware that her tenure was approaching an end last week, Habba is said to have told staff, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m grateful for my time. This is an amazing office, and I hope I can stay.”
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