The Trump administration late Tuesday fired New Jersey’s newly named top federal prosecutor hours after she was appointed by a panel of judges to replace his former lawyer, Alina Habba, whose 120-day term as the state’s interim U.S. attorney is nearing its end.
Exercising their legal right to appoint someone — which comes into play if the Senate has not confirmed a nominee — the state’s federal judges tapped career prosecutor Desiree Leigh Grace, Habba’s second-in-command.
Mere hours later, the Justice Department said they had canned Grace and reinstated Habba “pursuant to the president’s authority,” as U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche put it, accusing the judges of “colluding” with Democratic U.S. senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim to “further a left-wing agenda.”
Likewise, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi dismissed the panel as “politically minded” on X, adding, “This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers.”
Those powers, granted under a provision in the Constitution that gives a president lots of decision-making latitude, are what Trump has used to justify many of his administration’s actions. The order posted by Chief Judge Renée Marie Bumb, a President George Bush appointee, did not give a reason for their decision, and Bumb said after the DOJ’s move that “the court will have no comment.”
Habba, who once told a right-wing podcaster she hoped to “turn New Jersey red,” is investigating or prosecuting several top Democratic elected officials, mostly related to immigration. Booker and Kim have said the former Trump defense lawyer and spokesperson is unqualified, and they don’t support her nomination.
The DOJ’s move mirrors its attempts to keep Trump pick John A. Sarcone III on as D.A. in the Northern District of New York. After judges in Albany declined to extend his temporary term last week, the Justice Department gave him the title of “special attorney,” essentially making him his own assistant for an “indefinite” term, The New York Times reported.
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