New Jersey Democrats slam Trump gambit to install Habba as US attorney without approval

WASHINGTON (CN) — New Jersey’s Democratic senators are furious with the Donald Trump administration after their home state’s interim U.S. attorney signaled that she would remain in her position beyond the end of her term — and after the Justice Department fired her replacement.

The White House on Thursday withdrew Alina Habba’s nomination for U.S. attorney for New Jersey, just hours before her 120-day stint as the district’s acting lead federal prosecutor was set to expire. But in a post on X Thursday evening, Habba suggested that she would continue serving in that role anyway.

“Donald Trump is the 47th president,” she wrote. “Pam Bondi is the attorney general. And I am now the acting United States attorney for the District of New Jersey.”

Though the legal backing for the move was not immediately clear, it appears as though the Trump administration may be taking the initial steps to keep Habba on indefinitely as New Jersey’s top prosecutor without approval of the courts or Congress — following a playbook the White House has already used elsewhere.

Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month named John Sarcone, who had been interim U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, as a “special attorney” as well as the district’s first assistant U.S. attorney. With the full-time U.S. attorney slot vacant, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act allowed Sarcone to fill the position by default, seizing the role via legal loophole rather than a vetted nomination process.

Withdrawing Habba’s Senate nomination would be the first step in the White House undertaking a similar gambit in New Jersey. But Democrats have panned the move as an obvious end run around the courts and Congress.

“This is another attempt by the Trump administration to install Alina Habba as U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey by bypassing the court’s lawful authority and ignoring the required advice and consent of Congress,” wrote New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim in a statement Thursday evening.

According to the law, federal courts may appoint interim U.S. attorneys in their districts after the end of a White House appointee’s 120-day term. The District of New Jersey exercised that authority earlier this week, refusing to extend Habba’s appointment and instead naming her deputy, Desiree Grace, as interim U.S. attorney.

But the Justice Department, accusing the court of political malfeasance, fired Grace on Tuesday. The agency’s top officials had made no secret of their preference for Habba — Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche urged the court’s judges on Sunday to “use their authority” to keep her in place.

Booker and Kim, meanwhile, slammed the Justice Department as hypocritical for both acknowledging the court’s appointment power while trying to sidestep the process via creative methods.

“They don’t object to the process, they just don’t like the outcome,” the senators wrote. “So instead, they continue to undermine the legitimacy of the judiciary, jeopardizing New Jerseyans’ safety and destabilizing the integrity of our legal system.”

Habba’s nomination had been effectively dead in the Senate Judiciary Committee thanks to opposition from Booker and Kim, who have both refused to return blue slips on her appointment. A longstanding chamber tradition, blue slips allow senators to object to judicial nominees in their home states.

Asked for comment on Habba’s appointment Thursday, a spokesperson for Judiciary Committee chairman and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley pointed to the same federal law the White House used to justify installing Sarcone in the Northern District of New York.

“The Federal Vacancies Reform Act provides a mechanism to appoint acting U.S. attorneys,” the spokesperson said.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, in a separate statement Friday, said he was “deeply troubled” with what he saw as the Justice Department’s effort to circumvent the courts and Congress in the District of New Jersey. And he accused the White House of “abusing the interim appointment authority,” not only in New Jersey but in D.C., where Trump has appointed subsequent interim U.S. attorneys.

“Rather than respecting the Senate’s advice and consent duty and the statutory role of the courts in the interim appointment process, the Trump administration is trying to make end-runs around the Constitution,” said Durbin, the top-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

New Jersey’s Democratic senators have long complained that they’ve been kept largely in the dark on Habba’s nomination throughout the process. Kim told Courthouse News this week that the Trump administration has been “incredibly nontransparent,” adding that he was concerned with the prospect of Habba returning to a position of authority in the Garden State.

“This process went as it should have, and the judges made their decision,” Kim said. “It’s something we should all respect.”

The Trump administration has said that it has “full confidence” in Habba’s work as acting U.S attorney for New Jersey.

Habba rose to prominence as a member of the president’s personal legal team and one of his close advisors. As interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, she prosecuted Newark Mayor Ras Baraka over an incident at a federal immigration facility in the Garden State but later dropped the charges.

She also filed a similar case against U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat who has pleaded not guilty to assaulting a law enforcement officer outside the facility.

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