Justice Dept. moves to keep Alina Habba as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor
The Justice Department on Thursday appeared to have found a work-around for President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba to continue as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, through a complex procedural maneuver aimed at eking victory out of a standoff between the Trump administration and the state’s federal judges over the post.
Habba, whom the judges declined to reappoint earlier this week as acting U.S. attorney upon the expiration of the 120-day interim term that Trump appointed her to in March, abruptly resigned her position Thursday — a day before her term was set to expire.
Attorney General Pam Bondi then named Habba to the position of chief deputy in the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, a job typically held by a veteran prosecutor. That role had been vacant since Tuesday, when Bondi abruptly fired its previous occupant, Desiree Leigh Grace, just hours after the state’s federal judges voted to appoint Grace to replace Habba as acting U.S. attorney upon the expiration of Habba’s interim term.
Justice Department officials said Thursday that with no one currently holding the title of U.S. attorney after Habba’s resignation, and with Habba now in the role of chief deputy, she will automatically inherit the title of acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, under a federal statute that allows her to hold that job for at least another 210 days — all before the judges’ appointment of Grace can take effect.
Habba announced the results of that unorthodox process in a defiant social media post Thursday, after days in which her future as the head of New Jersey’s top federal law enforcement office appeared in doubt.
“Donald Trump is the 47th president. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General,” she wrote. “And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.”
The multistep process that put her there is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to place — and keep — loyalists at the helm of key U.S. attorney’s offices across the country, while bypassing the Senate’s role in confirming official nominees for the job and lawful procedures for courts to make appointments in the interim. Earlier this month, the Justice Department undertook similar moves to keep John E. Sarcone III, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney in the Albany-based Northern District of New York, on the job.
Experts said the legality of the administration’s unconventional maneuvers are largely untested and could open the U.S. attorney’s offices to challenges from defendants who might press to have any charges filed against them thrown out by arguing that Habba’s and Sarcone’s appointments as top prosecutors are now illegal. Still, no such challenges appear to have surfaced in New York in the days since the Justice Department’s push to keep Sarcone in his job there.
In Habba’s case, Trump on Thursday had to walk back his decision this month to formally nominate her for a full four-year, Senate-confirmed term as U.S. attorney. The federal law under which Habba now holds the title of acting U.S. attorney prohibits anyone whose nomination is pending before the Senate from taking on the acting U.S. attorney role.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions on whether it intends to renominate Habba for a full term at a later date. However, in a statement, spokesperson Harrison Fields said she still has the president’s full support.
“President Trump continues to have full confidence in Alina Habba and her commitment to serve the people of New Jersey,” he said.
Habba, 41, had never worked as a prosecutor before Trump’s decision to install her at the head of the New Jersey office. She had earned a reputation for sparring with judges while defending Trump in lawsuits in New York, including a defamation suit brought by author E. Jean Carroll.
But Habba quickly emerged as a lightning rod in the state through partisan pledges — such as her statement to a TV network days after her appointment that she aimed, while on the job, to help “turn New Jersey red” — and her attempts to investigate or prosecute prominent Democratic elected officials in the state.
In just three months, Habba has announced investigations of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D), and filed felony assault charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) over a scuffle with immigration officials that erupted during a congressional oversight visit to a detention facility in Newark.
U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D) and Andy Kim (D) of New Jersey had pledged they would not support Habba’s nomination in the Senate because of concerns over her qualifications and her track record as a “partisan warrior.”
Grace, the veteran prosecutor and registered Republican who New Jersey’s federal judges had appointed to replace Habba, said in a statement Wednesday that despite the confusion that erupted earlier this week over who would lead the office, she remained prepared to begin serving in the position starting Saturday, “in accordance with the law,” after Habba’s term was set to expire.
But Thursday’s maneuvers appear to have eliminated the possibility that she will get that chance. Habba, in her social media post Thursday, asserted she was here to stay.
“I don’t cower to pressure. I don’t answer to politics,” she wrote. “This is a fight for justice. And I’m all in.”