Judges in New Jersey appointed a new top federal prosecutor for the state on Monday in a move that drew swift support from the Justice Department, signaling an apparent end to a standoff that has roiled courts there for much of the past year.
In a one-sentence order, the federal judges named Robert Frazer, a career prosecutor who has worked in the New Jersey office for more than two decades, as acting U.S. attorney. Most recently, he had served as a senior trial counsel leading high-profile narcotics cases.
Frazer replaces a triumvirate of leaders the Justice Department installed to lead the New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office late last year — an unusual arrangement a federal judge ruled earlier this month was illegal.
Though the Justice Department in recent months has swiftly fired other U.S. attorneys appointed by the courts — including ones in New York, Virginia and an earlier pick by New Jersey’s judges — the agency said Monday that Frazer had its backing.
Department lawyers, in a court filing Monday, said that Frazer had emerged as a mutually agreeable candidate after consultation between the district’s judges and senior Justice Department officials.
“The Department of Justice thanks the district court for working with the Department to appoint Robert Frazer to serve as US Attorney so that once again criminal prosecutions can resume without needless challenge or delay on behalf of the people of New Jersey,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement.
Alina Habba, a senior adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi who previously served as interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, immediately congratulated Frazer on social media.
“New Jersey deserves a great chief federal law enforcement official who is in line with President Trump’s agenda of making this country safe and NJ great!” she wrote. “I know Rob well and he will be a great champion of this state.”
Habba added that Frazer’s selection showed that when judges work with department leadership instead of “attack[ing] mindlessly for political gain THINGS GET DONE.”
Frazer is the fourth person named to lead the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office in the tumultuous period since President Donald Trump returned to the White House
Typically, U.S. attorneys are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. But federal law allows the Justice Department to temporarily fill vacant roles with an interim appointee for a period of 120 days.
Trump’s first interim pick for the role, John Giordano, resigned after less than a month when the president tapped him to become ambassador to Namibia instead.
Trump then installed Habba, one of his former personal lawyers, in the role. She quickly drew criticism from the state’s senators — both Democrats — for partisan rhetoric, lack of prior prosecutorial experience and her decision to open investigations and, in some cases, charge several prominent Democrats in the state with crimes.
As Habba’s 120-day interim appointment came to an end, the state’s judges named her first assistant — Desiree Grace, a career prosecutor in the office — to replace her. But the Justice Department fired Grace the same day and vowed to keep Habba at the helm.
Habba was eventually forced out earlier this year, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit upheld a lower-court ruling that held Habba’s continued service as U.S. attorney was unlawful.
Since then, a trio of Justice Department officials — including Jordan Fox, a former adviser to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche; Ari Fontecchio, a career prosecutor in the office; and Philip Lamparello, a senior counsel who came in under Habba — had been managing the day-to-day functions of the office, which oversees all federal civil and criminal legal matters in the state.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled that arrangement, too, violated federal appointment laws and disqualified those appointees from serving. Brann warned that any further attempts to fill the role of U.S. attorney in New Jersey through unlawful means would result in the dismissal of Justice Department cases in the state.
When there is no Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney or lawfully appointed interim pick in a given judicial district, federal law empowers the district’s judges to name an acting leader.
But efforts by courts to exercise that authority contrary to the Justice Department’s wishes have drawn swift backlash from senior department officials.
Federal judges in the Albany-based Northern District of New York named a lawyer Donald Kinsella to serve in the role last month, after Trump’s interim pick there, John Sarcone III, was disqualified by the courts. The White House fired Kinsella less than five hours after his appointment was announced.
Blanche similarly announced the firing of James W. Hundley after judges in the Arlington-based Eastern District of Virginia named him acting U.S. attorney in February. Hundley had been named to replace Lindsey Halligan, another of Trump’s former personal attorneys installed in a U.S. attorney role and later disqualified by the courts.
“Here we go again,” Blanche wrote at the time. “EDVA judges do not pick our U.S. Attorney. POTUS does. James Hundley, you’re fired!”
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