Alina Habba isn’t waving the white flag on her quest to become a U.S. attorney just yet.
The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to reconsider a December ruling by a three-judge panel that forced the former Trump lawyer, 41, out of her role as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor.
Habba stepped down as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey last month after a panel of George W. Bush and Barack Obama appointees at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that she had been unlawfully serving for too long without Senate confirmation, in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
The ruling dealt a blow to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who called the decision “flawed” and handed Habba a consolation prize by naming her a Senior Adviser to the Attorney General for U.S. Attorneys.
Bondi argued in the Wednesday filing that Habba’s resignation does not render the appeal of the disqualification orders moot.
“A defendant’s temporary compliance with a court order while ‘forcefully maintain[ing]’ the legality of its conduct pending further proceedings does not moot a case,” it read.
When Bondi accepted Habba’s resignation in December, she wrote that the Justice Department would pursue a review of the decision and was “confident it will be reversed.” Bondi added that Habba would “return to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey if this occurs.”
Habba wrote in a declaration dated Jan. 13 that she would still have resigned even if Bondi had not appointed her as a senior adviser.
“I did not and do not want the controversy over my authority to lead the USAO-NJ to interfere with the Office’s critical and important work,” she said. “If the Court of Appeals en banc or the Supreme Court reverses the decisions of the Giraud panel and Chief Judge Brann, I intend to return to my prior position leading the USAO-NJ.”
District Judge Matthew W. Brann, an Obama appointee, first ruled in August that Habba’s appointment was unlawful. That was later upheld by three judges at the Third Circuit: Bush appointees D. Brooks Smith and D. Michael Fisher, and Obama appointee L. Felipe Restrepo.
Habba, a longtime MAGA devotee from New Jersey, defended Donald Trump in several high-profile cases, including the defamation suit that he lost to New York writer E. Jean Carroll and a case against Hillary Clinton over what he has dubbed the “Russia collusion hoax” that was dismissed as “completely frivolous” by a Florida judge.
“I’ve endured and stood by him through a tremendous amount of fight—most of which was unfair and coordinated in an effort to hurt him, his family, and his campaign,” Habba told Vanity Fair in September.
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