Former Trump lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified as top New Jersey prosecutor, US appeals court rules

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified from serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor despite his administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role, an appeals court said Monday.

A panel of judges from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Philadelphia sided with a lower-court judge’s ruling after hearing oral arguments at which Habba was present on Oct. 20.

“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place. Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced — yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability,” the court wrote in a 32-page opinion.

It concluded: “We will affirm the District Court’s disqualification order.”

The ruling comes amid the push by Trump’s Republican administration to keep Habba as the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law. It also comes after the judges questioned the government’s moves to keep Habba in place after her interim appointment expired and without her getting Senate confirmation.

Habba said after that hearing in a statement posted to X that she was fighting on behalf of other candidates to be federal prosecutors who have been denied a chance for a Senate hearing.

The White House had no immediate comment on Habba and referred questions to the Justice Department. Messages were left Monday seeking comment from the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, Habba’s personal staffer and the Justice Department.

The decision affirmed Habba is serving unlawfully, attorneys for the appellees said in an emailed statement.

“We will continue to challenge President Trump’s unlawful appointments of purported U.S. Attorneys wherever appropriate,” said attorneys Abbe Lowell, Gerry Krovatin and Norm Eisen in the statement.

Other appointments have been challenged, too

Habba is hardly the only Trump administration prosecutor whose appointment has been challenged by defense lawyers.

Last week, a federal judge dismissed criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after concluding that the hastily installed prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed to the position of interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Justice Department has said it intends to appeal the rulings.

The judges on the panel were two appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, D. Brooks Smith and D. Michael Fisher, as well as one named by Democratic President Barack Obama, Luis Felipe Restrepo.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the ruling would affect prosecutions. Jacob Elberg, a Seton Hall Law School professor, said the decision would have “real implications.”

“This is an office that has a lot of responsibility for protecting citizens from all types of criminal conduct as well as issues that are civil in nature, but real significant consequences,” he said. “And this is a real challenge to that office’s ability to do its work.”

The judge said Habba was unlawfully serving

A lower-court judge, Matthew Brann, said in August that Habba’s appointment was done with a “novel series of legal and personnel moves” and that she was unlawfully serving as U.S attorney for New Jersey.

That order said Habba’s actions since July could be invalidated, but the judge stayed the order pending appeal.

The government argued Habba is validly serving in the role under a federal statute allowing the first assistant attorney, a post she was appointed to by the Trump administration.

A similar dynamic is playing out in Nevada, where a federal judge disqualified the Trump administration’s pick to be U.S. attorney there.

Who challenged Habba’s tenure?

The Habba case comes after several people charged with federal crimes in New Jersey challenged the legality of her tenure. They sought to block the charges, arguing she didn’t have the authority to prosecute their cases after her 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expired.

Habba was Trump’s attorney in criminal and civil proceedings before he was elected to a second term. She served as a White House adviser briefly before Trump named her as a federal prosecutor in March.

Shortly after her appointment, she said in an interview that she hoped to help “turn New Jersey red,” a rare overt political expression from a prosecutor.

She then brought a trespassing charge, eventually dropped, against Democratic Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka stemming from his visit to a federal immigration detention center.

Habba later charged Democratic U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault stemming from the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. McIver denied the charges and pleaded not guilty. The case is pending.

Questions about whether Habba would continue in the job arose in July when her temporary appointment was ending and it became clear New Jersey’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, would not back her appointment.

Earlier this year as Habba’s appointment was expiring, federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace her with a career prosecutor who had served as her second-in-command.

Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired the prosecutor installed by the judges and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney. The Justice Department said the judges acted prematurely and said Trump had the authority to appoint his preferred candidate to enforce federal laws in the state.

Brann’s ruling said the president’s appointments are still subject to the time limits and power-sharing rules laid out in federal law.