The federal bench in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday named James W. Hundley, a veteran defense lawyer, to serve as the interim U.S. attorney in the district, replacing the Trump loyalist who resigned last month after a judge ruled that she had been put into her post unlawfully.
The appointment of Mr. Hundley, who has more than 35 years of experience as a litigator in Virginia, teed up a potential conflict with the Trump administration, which recently fired the interim U.S. attorney in the Northern District of New York only hours after he was given the job by federal judges there.
The administration has already suggested that it would dismiss any prosecutor chosen by district judges — a power granted to them under the law when U.S. attorneys acting in a temporary capacity are forced to leave their post or come to the end of their traditional 120-day terms. In recent months, federal judges across the country have determined that several U.S. attorneys were installed by the Trump administration in violation of both the law and the Constitution through a series of unusual legal maneuvers.
Mr. Hundley replaces Lindsey Halligan, a former defense lawyer for Mr. Trump, who was put in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office despite her lack of experience as a prosecutor after her predecessor, Erik S. Siebert, was forced out by the president. Mr. Siebert drew Mr. Trump’s ire after he refused to bring charges against two of the president’s most reviled political adversaries: James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.
Four days after she took over for Mr. Siebert, Ms. Halligan went into a grand jury and obtained an indictment of Mr. Comey. Two weeks later, she secured an indictment of Ms. James. Both cases were ultimately dismissed when a federal judge determined that Ms. Halligan had been unlawfully appointed to replace Mr. Siebert.
The Justice Department is appealing the dismissals.
In a brief order appointing Mr. Hundley, M. Hannah Lauck, the chief federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, said that he had spent years running his own law firm, which has “a prominent criminal and civil litigation practice.” Judge Lauck also noted that Mr. Hundley had successfully argued cases in front of the Supreme Court and had served as a guest lecturer at local law schools as well as the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Education.
Mr. Hundley’s father, William, was a prominent lawyer himself, most famous for representing people like Attorney General John N. Mitchell in his Watergate trial, and the lawyer Vernon E. Jordan Jr., a close aide to former President Bill Clinton.
Just last week, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, fired Donald T. Kinsella, a longtime lawyer in upstate New York, mere hours after federal judges appointed him as the interim U.S. attorney in Albany.
“Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does,” Mr. Blanche wrote in a social media post that echoed a line Mr. Trump was famous for using during his days as a reality TV star. “See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella.”
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
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