Appeals Court Upholds Alina Habba Ban  12/02 06:15

   

   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.