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(CN) — President Donald Trump on Monday announced he will appoint Alina Habba, one of the attorneys who defended him against civil charges in New York, as interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, effective immediately.
“Alina will lead with the same diligence and conviction that has defined her career, and she will fight tirelessly to secure a legal system that is both ‘fair and just’ for the wonderful people of New Jersey,” Trump said in a social media statement announcing the appointment.
Less than a month ago, Trump named John Giordano, a Philadelphia lawyer with ties to the president, as the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Now, Trump said he’ll nominate Giordano for the role of ambassador to Namibia instead.
The White House didn’t immediately provide a reason for the shake-up.
Habba briefly spoke with reporters in Washington after the announcement. She said that she’ll be “making sure that we further the agenda of putting America first, cleaning up mess, and going after the people we should be going after.”
When asked, she didn’t name any targets of potential prosecution specifically, but mentioned two New Jersey Democrats — Senator Cory Booker and Governor Phil Murphy — as having “failed the state,” and said “corruption” and “injustice” would stop under her leadership.
“I am honored to serve my home state of New Jersey as Interim U.S. Attorney and I am grateful to President Trump for entrusting me with this tremendous responsibility,” Habba said in a statement on social media.
Habba became a controversial and outspoken member of Trump’s personal legal team. She represented him in his defamation cases against writer E. Jean Carroll — a pair of trials in which Trump was found liable for civil rape, and now owes more than $80 million as a result.
She also defended Trump in his civil fraud case in Manhattan. Trump lost that case, too. He was ordered to pay roughly half a billion dollars after a judge ruled that he falsely inflated the value of his assets to swindle banks into giving him loans. In that trial, Habba and Trump’s other attorneys were slapped with gag orders for repeatedly attacking the judge’s law clerk in open court.
And Habba served as a legal spokesperson for Trump in his Manhattan criminal trial last year, where he was found guilty for falsifying business records to cover up hush money he paid to a porn star during his first presidential campaign.
The 40-year-old Summit, New Jersey, native is the latest former member of Trump’s personal legal team to score a high-ranking position in the Department of Justice. Trump’s lead criminal attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented him in his historic criminal trial, were tapped to be the No. 2 and No. 3 positions in the department, respectively.
Habba is taking over New Jersey’s federal court just days after it was assigned the momentous case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and green-card holder detained by federal immigration authorities for his Palestinian rights activism. Federal prosecutors in New Jersey, now under Habba’s leadership, are slated to fight Khalil’s efforts to thwart deportation in the case that has demanded national attention.
The daughter of Iraqi immigrants, Habba entered the MAGA circle in 2019 after joining the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, less than a ten-minute drive from her namesake law firm, where she eventually became friendly with Trump.
Since then, Habba has been a fierce Trump ally both in and out of court. She joined Trump’s latest successful presidential campaign as a senior adviser and spoke at the final night of the 2024 Republican National Convention.
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