A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Alina Habba is disqualified to serve as U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
Attorney General Pam Bondi selected Habba to serve as an interim U.S. attorney, which carried with it a time limit of 120 days.
But President Donald Trump then nominated Habba, his former personal lawyer, to serve in the permanent position in June. However, the Senate never acted on the nomination, so he withdrew her name on July 24, Axios reported.
That same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Habba a special attorney with the authority to oversee “any kind of legal proceedings … which United States Attorneys are authorized to conduct,” 3rd U.S Circuit Court Judge D. Michael Fisher, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in the 32-page opinion.
Fellow appeals court Judges D. Brooks Smith, also a Bush appointee, and Judge L. Felipe Restrepo, appointed by former President Barack Obama, joined in the ruling, finding Habba’s appointment violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
“Under the Government’s delegation theory, Habba may avoid the gauntlet of presidential appointment and Senate confirmation and serve as the de facto U.S. Attorney indefinitely,” the ruling by a three-judge panel said.
“This view is so broad that it bypasses the constitutional PAS [Senate confirmation] process. It also essentially eliminates the requirements of the FVRA and the U.S. Attorney-specific statute, § 546,” they added.
Statute § 546 provides that, after 120 days, “the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.”
BREAKING: Rogue judges have just disqualified Alina Habba from serving as U.S. Attorney in New Jersey.
pic.twitter.com/ITR1C8O5cO— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 1, 2025
In other words, the judges in the district and not the attorney general have the authority to appoint the interim U.S. attorney until the Senate confirms a nominee to the position.
Justice Department lawyer Henry Whitaker had argued on appeal that the attorney general had followed the law, employing “overlapping mechanisms” to retain Habba in the post, Fox News reported.
“In this case, the executive branch admittedly took a series of precise and precisely timed steps not to evade or circumvent those mechanisms but rather to be scrupulously careful to comply with them,” Whitaker said.
“Would you concede that the sequence of events here, and for me, they’re unusual, would you concede that there are serious constitutional implications to your theory here, the government’s theory, which really is a complete circumvention, it seems, of the appointments clause?” a judge asked in response.
The appointments clause in Article II of the Constitution requires “Officers of the United States” to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, except that Congress may authorize certain other means of appointment for “inferior Officers.” (page 6 of opinion).
The Trump administration faces a similar battle in Virginia, where U.S. District Court Judge Cameron Currie, a Bill Clinton appointee, ruled that Lindsey Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney was defective and therefore dropped her office’s charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Halligan, also a former Trump personal attorney, took over the U.S. attorney position from Erik Siebert, who was serving on an interim basis, with the approval of the judges from the Eastern District of Virginia.
Axios noted federal judges have also ruled that the Trump DOJ’s appointments of Sigal Chattah in Nevada and Bill Essayli in Los Angeles as interim U.S. attorneys are unlawful.
The DOJ can appeal the ruling against Habba either by seeking a review by the full panel of judges for the 3rd Circuit or by petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court.
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