Washington — A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba is serving illegally as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
The judge’s decision came after three men facing criminal charges in the state challenged her appointment, arguing that Habba’s appointment last month as acting U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann of Pennsylvania wrote that Habba has been serving “without lawful authority” since the beginning of July and “must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases.”
The judge did not toss out the criminal indictments of the three men who challenged Habba’s appointment, but said she cannot supervise their prosecutions. Two of the three defendants were charged with drug offenses, and the other was charged with investment fraud and bribery.
“Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” Brann wrote.
The ruling does not apply beyond the two criminal cases, and Brann put his order on hold to give the Justice Department the opportunity to appeal. But it follows a weekslong saga over whether Habba is serving lawfully, prompting a showdown between the Trump administration and the judicial branch.
Earlier this year, Habba, a former defense attorney for Mr. Trump, was named interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey. Federal law restricted her time in the post to 120 days, unless the district court extended her tenure or she won Senate confirmation. New Jersey’s two senators, Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim, opposed her nomination, making it highly unlikely it would advance through the upper chamber.
As Habba’s interim status approached the 120-day limit, New Jersey federal district court judges set off a leadership scramble in the U.S. attorney’s office when they declined to keep Habba in the role. The judges instead installed her second-in-command, Desiree Leigh Grace, as the state’s top federal prosecutor.
However, shortly after that decision, Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Grace, a career prosecutor in the office.
To circumvent the judge’s order, Mr. Trump withdrew Habba’s nomination to serve as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, which temporarily cleared the way for her to serve as the U.S. attorney in the state in an acting capacity — which is legally different from interim status — until Thursday’s order.
Brann concluded Thursday that Habba’s acting appointment was unlawful under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. He also wrote that the Trump administration was only legally allowed to pick an interim U.S. attorney for 120 total days — and that clock started in early March, when Habba’s predecessor was appointed, not in late March, when the job went to Habba.
And he said Habba can’t carry out the job of U.S. attorney without the title, striking down an effort by the Justice Department to name her “special attorney.”
For those reasons, Brann wrote, Habba has served unlawfully since July 1.
CBS News has reached out to the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey for comment.
Because New Jersey federal judges had a conflict of interest in the case due to the order to remove Habba, the defendants’ motions were assigned to Brann, who was appointed to the federal district court in Pennsylvania by President Barack Obama in 2012.
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