Donald Trump’s attempts to keep his personal attorney Alina Habba as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor has sparked yet another showdown between his administration and a judiciary he despises.
The latest clash between the president and the courts is a crisis of his own making, piling on to an already chaotic week at the Department of Justice where officials are putting out Jeffrey Epstein-related fires elsewhere.
In a rare move Tuesday morning, New Jersey’s federal trial judges named their own nominee to replace Habba at the end of her 120-day term as the state’s acting U.S. Attorney. But hours later, Attorney General Pam Bondi not only blocked the judges’ nominee but “removed” her from the office entirely.
That prosecutor, Desiree Leigh Grace, who has spent a decade fighting crime at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark, said she is still prepared to take the job and will show up for work “in accordance with the law.” A spokesperson for the Justice Department told The Independent that “Grace is no longer an employee of the department.”
The situation has left the office’s leadership in a state of limbo with potentially serious consequences for its caseload after Habba launched several investigations and indictments against Trump’s political enemies.
It’s unclear what will happen next.
To stay on permanently, Habba needs to be confirmed by the Senate, but it’s unlikely her name will come up for a vote any time soon. New Jersey’s Democratic senators have effectively killed off chances of a confirmation vote, let alone a hearing.
On Tuesday, Bondi accused the New Jersey judges of “going rogue”. But by firing Habba’s deputy and attacking judges, “it is clear that it is the AG herself who has gone rogue,” Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund, told The Independent.
Bondi and her deputy attorney general Todd Blanche “are amplifying the issue on social media, using it as a tool to undermine the legitimacy of the judiciary,” Canter said.
The Independent has requested comment from the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey.
Habba’s appointment by Trump as New Jersey’s top prosecutor was controversial from the start. After she briefly served as “counselor to the president” at the White House, she was sworn in as acting U.S. attorney in her home state on March 28.
She has appeared to repeatedly fail upwards in her service to the president. In the months leading up to the 2024 election, she lost several blockbuster cases defending Trump, costing him close to half a billion dollars, and judges slapped her with sanctions and scoldings in open court.
Legal experts argue that her 120-day term as New Jersey’s top prosecutor should have ended Tuesday. Blanche argues her term ends at midnight on Friday, marking 120 days from her swearing-in ceremony.
If the Trump doubles down on keeping Habba in her role, the administration could be entering unprecedented, messy legal territory.
The president may attempt to reappoint Habba, which will likely trigger another legal fight between Trump and the courts, according to Stanford Law School professor Anne Joseph O’Connell, an expert on vacancy issues.
That could set off even more legal battles. Anyone facing prosecution by Habba’s office could argue in court that she was unlawfully appointed, and that the charges against them should be thrown out.
Federal judges had similarly tried to stop John Sarcone from continuing on as U.S. attorney in upstate New York earlier this year. Trump then named him as a “special attorney to the attorney general” to keep him in place.
Despite the New Jersey judges using their lawful authority to appoint Grace, who was hired by Habba to serve as her top assistant, Justice Department officials have accused them of advancing a politically motivated attempt to force Habba out of the job. (The order from the judges was signed by George W. Bush-appointed chief judge Renee Marie Bumb.)
New Jersey’s Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim blasted the Justice Department for undermining judges who lawfully appointed Habba’s successor.
“The firing of a career public servant, lawfully appointed by the court, is another blatant attempt to intimidate anyone that doesn’t agree with them and undermine judicial independence,” the senators said in a joint statement. “This administration may not like the law, but they are not above it.”
Under federal law, the U.S. attorney general has the power to appoint an interim U.S. attorney in a state for 120 days when that position is vacant. At the end of that period, the law only says that the “district court for such district may appoint a United States Attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.”
But the law doesn’t require the interim U.S. attorney to be kicked out. It only requires that the district court decide whether it wants to keep that person or appoint someone else, a person close to the confirmation process told The Independent.
In a post on LinkedIn Wednesday night, Grace did not explicitly mention that she was fired, but ended on a defiant note.
“[T]he District Judges for the District of New Jersey selected me to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. It will forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit, and I’m prepared to follow that Order and begin to serve in accordance with the law,” she wrote.
Her post was met with dozens of messages of support from law enforcement and officials in other state prosecutors’ offices.
Other top Democrats have accused the Trump administration of abusing the interim appointment process to install loyalists like Habba, who otherwise would never win approval in the Senate.
Trump appointed far-right legal activist Ed Martin as interim U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., and then replaced him with former Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro when it was clear there were not enough votes to confirm him. The Senate Judiciary Committee recommended Pirro’s nomination by a vote of 12-0 on Thursday, with no Democrats voting in support.
Senator Dick Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat, said that rather than respect the courts, “the Trump Administration is trying to make end-runs around the Constitution.”
The Justice Department’s claims of political maneuvering follow years of allegations of Habba launching politically motivated stunts of her own.
Shortly after her appointment to the U.S. attorney’s office, she told a right-wing media outlet that she plans to “turn New Jersey red.”
“So, hopefully, while I’m there, I can help that cause,” she said.
In April, Habba told Fox News that her office had launched an investigation into New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matthew Platkin over a directive to local law enforcement instructing them against cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.
The following month, she announced on Fox News that her office was bringing criminal charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka after a scuffle with federal agents during a congressional oversight visit at an immigration detention center.
She later abruptly dropped trespassing charges against Baraka “for the sake of moving forward” — and then criminally charged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault.
The judge overseeing the case against Baraka criticized Habba’s about-face in open court and questioned why prosecutors even brought the charges in the first place.
“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” Magistrate Judge Andre M. Espinosa said. “Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law, to the pursuit of truth and to the upholding of due process for all.”
Habba has also been under an ethics investigation New Jersey Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Ethics for months following a settlement with a former employee at Trump’s Bedminster golf club who accused the lawyer of tricking her into signing an agreement to keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations.
Habba’s back-to-back losses in New York courtrooms defending Trump last year racked up nearly half a billion dollars in two blockbuster judgments against him.
Trump was ordered to pay E Jean Carroll more than $83 million after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming the former Elle magazine writer. One month later, Trump was ordered to pay more than $350 million to the state for more than a decade of business fraud — a judgment that has only grown with interest to more than $500 million as he tries to appeal.
Habba was repeatedly reprimanded for her behavior and mistakes in court, and the president’s other attorneys in the fraud case ought to distance themselves from Habba after they were sanctioned for “frivolous” court filings they claim were her fault.
But Habba emerged as a powerful spokesperson on Trump’s behalf, infusing her in-court arguments with the same disdain for what she and Trump view as a politically-motivated judiciary.
Habba’s New Jersey-based firm, Habba Madaio & Associates, was first hired by Trump in 2021 for a legal challenge against his niece Mary Trump and The New York Times, which were sued for $100 million for publishing information about his tax returns. That case was ultimately dismissed, and Trump was ordered to pay $400,000 in legal fees.
She also represented Trump in a defamation case brought by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, who accused the former president of sexual assault. Zervos later dropped the case.
In 2023, Habba was the subject of a blistering federal court judgment that ordered nearly $1 million in sanctions against her and Trump’s legal team for their spurious lawsuit against former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. A federal judge in Florida accused his attorneys of turning to the courts to put on a political sideshow, labeling Trump a “mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process.”
“The courts are not intended for performative litigation for purposes of fund-raising and political statements,” District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote at the time.
When she joined Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in the days leading up to Election Day last year, she danced her way to the stage to the tune of DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win.”
