Attorney General Pam Bondi recently dismissed Desiree Grace, a federal judge-appointed designee for U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, shortly before her confirmation. This move has raised concerns among legal experts and political observers, who view it as part of a broader effort to align the Department of Justice with President Donald Trump’s agenda.The Independent+2Politico+2Conservative Brief+2Yahoo
Grace had been selected by a majority of federal judges in New Jersey to replace Alina Habba, a Trump ally whose interim appointment was nearing its expiration. Bondi’s decision to fire Grace and reappoint Habba has sparked legal challenges, with critics arguing that the maneuver undermines judicial independence and circumvents Senate confirmation processes. A federal judge is currently reviewing the legality of Habba’s reappointment .The Wall Street Journal+2Conservative Brief+2Politico+2Politico
This development is part of a series of actions by Bondi that have drawn bipartisan scrutiny. She has been accused of pressuring DOJ lawyers to advance Trump’s political agenda, threatening discipline if they refused . Additionally, Bondi has faced criticism for her handling of the Epstein investigation, leading to calls for her resignation .AOL+3International Business Times+3Latin Times+3The Week+1AP News+1
The controversy surrounding Bondi’s actions continues to unfold, with ongoing legal proceedings and political debates shaping the future of the Department of Justice under the Trump administration.
A federal judge says he will decide whether President Donald Trump’s pick to lead federal prosecutors in New Jersey, Alina Habba, has the legal authority to continue operating as the state’s acting U.S. attorney.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann indicated Friday that he would delve into the thorny question following a series of unusual maneuvers by Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi to keep Habba in the role on a temporary basis. That prompted some criminal defendants to raise questions about Habba’s legitimacy.
It was not clear until Friday that Brann would even evaluate Habba’s appointment. First, the judge had to deal with a threshold issue: whether the status of Habba’s authority would affect the case of the defendant who brought the challenge pending before Brann.
In a 27-page ruling, Brann said that it could very well affect who can prosecute the case, and the judge made clear he takes the challenge to Habba’s authority that emerged in recent days seriously. He also said a legal position taken by the Department of Justice in Habba’s defense was “extreme” and expressed curiosity about the multi-step maneuver Trump used to keep Habba in power.
Brann’s signal that he’ll rule on the matter could open the floodgate to additional challenges and efforts by defendants with cases pending in the New Jersey federal court. Since the oral argument isn’t scheduled until Aug. 15, there could be additional weeks of uncertainty.
Trump installed Habba as interim U.S. attorney in March, a 120-day appointment that was set to expire last month, while Habba’s nomination to hold the seat permanently languished in the Senate. As the expiration of her term neared, federal district judges in New Jersey seized on a longstanding provision of the law to appoint her successor, naming Desiree Grace, a veteran career prosecutor who had served as Habba’s deputy.
But Trump and Bondi moved to keep Habba in the job by firing Grace and appointing Habba to Grace’s old position. That maneuver led to a challenge by Julien Giraud, Jr., who is facing federal gun and drug charges in New Jersey.
Brann, a federal judge based in Williamsport, Pa., became involved because the judges in New Jersey were conflicted out of the case — a result of their role in naming Grace to the post.
The legal showdown crystallized last weekend when an attorney for Giraud said the workaround Trump used to keep Habba in place was irregular and unconstitutional. The attorney, Thomas Mirigliano, filed a challenge to Habba’s authority asking for 2024 gun and drug-related charges to be thrown out or that Habba and her assistants be barred from exercising further prosecutorial powers in the case.
Brann said the request to toss the case entirely was “unmoored” from the legal controversy around Habba’s appointment, since Giraud was indicted last year, well before Habba was appointed.
“It escapes logic to contend that that appointment somehow retroactively taints the indictment, or any aspect of the prosecution that preceded it,” wrote Brann, an Obama appointee active in Republican politics before being confirmed to the bench. But the judge left open the door to barring Habba from participating in or overseeing Giraud’s prosecution.
A ruling to strip Habba of her power as acting U.S. attorney could throw the federal criminal justice system in New Jersey into chaos — and even Brann’s ruling creates massive uncertainty for other pending cases because of the open question about whether Habba can participate in prosecutions in the office she runs.
In his ruling Friday, Brann sought to tamp down worries that he would create an “officewide disqualification” of federal prosecutors in the Garden State.
But the judge said he could bar prosecutors from engaging in prosecutions “when they do so under Ms. Habba’s authority.” That could end up being an academic argument, if they operate in the name of Attorney General Pam Bondi and do the same things they would do under Habba, but it could also create practical challenges if they can’t report directly to Habba.
Brann seemed troubled by a Justice Department argument that Habba can “do anything the U.S. Attorney can do” because Bondi designated her as a “special attorney.”
“The Government’s position has extreme implications that it openly embraces,” Brann wrote, “by using the Special Attorney designation and delegation, Ms. Habba may exercise all of the powers of the United States Attorney without being subject to any of the statutory limitations on that office.”
He also laid out a clear definition of long-term U.S. attorneys and said that they should be “appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, are removable only by the President, and have an independent source of statutory authority.”
A spokesperson for Habba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mirigliano, the defense attorney who brought the case, said he respected the decision denying the motion to dismiss while “deferring judgment on the broader constitutional and statutory questions surrounding Ms. Habba’s appointment. We will fully brief the issues as directed and look forward to presenting our arguments.”
