Even for a president who likes to reward his former lawyers with powerful legal positions, Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to make Alina Habba a federal prosecutor was bizarre. Not only did she have no experience as a prosecutor, but Habba is perhaps best known for helping file a bizarre lawsuit targeting Hillary Clinton and several other Democrats in 2022, which proved so ridiculous that a judge imposed harsh sanctions on Habba for bringing “political grievances masquerading as legal claims” to court.
Nevertheless, four months ago, the president tapped Habba to serve as U.S. attorney in New Jersey on an interim basis, overseeing a large prosecutorial office. This week, her interim appointment expired, and it appeared her tenure had run its course.
As The New York Times reported, she’s apparently back.
The Justice Department on Thursday cleared the way for Alina Habba to remain in her role as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey. Ms. Habba’s tenure as interim U.S. attorney was set to expire on Friday. But she announced on social media on Thursday that she would be New Jersey’s acting U.S. attorney. The decision will allow Ms. Habba to lead the New Jersey office for at least the next 210 days.
This one gets a little complicated, but stick with me for a minute.
During her tenure as an interim U.S. attorney, Habba was a disaster. The New York Times reported that Habba, since taking office, “shattered morale inside the U.S. attorney’s office and left many prosecutors looking for a way out.” The unqualified Republican lawyer appeared far more interested in partisan politics than law enforcement.
Habba could’ve remained in the position a while longer if federal judges in the district agreed to keep her on, but the jurists in New Jersey instead decided to show her the door and appointed a qualified successor: Desiree Leigh Grace, an experienced prosecutor.
Attorney General Pam Bondi didn’t like the new, court-approved U.S. attorney in New Jersey — in fact, Bondi lashed out at the judges in ways that displayed real ignorance about a process the attorney general should’ve understood — and decided to fire Grace.
It was around this time that Trump, who had already nominated Habba to permanently serve as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, decided to withdraw her nomination. And why would he do that?
So that the president and the attorney general could choose Habba to serve as the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, not to be confused with her previous role as the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, filling her own vacancy. In the process, as the editorial board of The Washington Post noted, the White House showed a “defiance of the judicial and legislative branches,” which in turn “tees up a possible challenge to a federal vacancies law and a century-old Senate custom called the blue slip.” The “blue slip” tradition is itself a little complicated, but to briefly summarize, U.S. senators, regardless of party, are supposed to have the authority to reject U.S. attorney nominees in their home states. Both of New Jersey’s Democratic senators have predictably balked at Habba, her lack of qualifications, her alleged ethics mess and her overtly partisan antics. Trump and Bondi, however, apparently don’t care, and keep going to outlandish lengths to keep Habba in her prosecutorial office. I don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of this one. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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