Trump’s Justice Department has lost once again in court over its ongoing scheme to circumvent congressional approval for installing federal prosecutors.
In a scathing 130-page order released on Monday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled that the current leadership structure of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey is invalid, and warned that if the DOJ continues with these shenanigans, a number of federal cases could be thrown out.
The controversy stems back to Trump’s decision to install one of his former defense attorneys, Alina Habba, as the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey last year. Because Senate Republicans were too divided to confirm her permanently, the judges in that district replaced her after the 120-day period expired, a move generally reserved only for cases where the appointee is seriously unqualified. The DOJ responded by firing the replacement and reinstalling Habba on an acting basis.
After judges declared this scheme unlawful, Habba begrudgingly resigned. However, the Trump administration still refused to put a Senate-confirmed nominee in the role, leaving the position vacant for months, and instead, Attorney General Pam Bondi has appointed other people into the office to wield the power of a U.S. attorney without actually having that title.
Brann’s order warned the DOJ that it doesn’t get to do that, either.
“One year into this administration, it is plain that President Trump and his top aides have chafed at the limits on their power set forth by law and the Constitution,” wrote Brann. “Here, the Government proffers that, notwithstanding Congress’s clear and unambiguous requirement of Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation before a person may exercise the powers of a United States Attorney — a limit established by the First Congress and unchanged for over 236 years — Congress also, through a tangled web of broad enactments using general language, simultaneously authorized the Attorney General to ignore this requirement and appoint whomever she wants to do exactly the same job.”
Under this logic, Brann continued, “the Attorney General can appoint anyone to any subordinate position in the Department of Justice and delegate them the authority to act in any other subordinate role, no matter how significant. That argument amounts to an enormous assertion of Presidential power.”
Brann went on to warn the DOJ that if this situation is not remedied and a U.S. attorney is not installed properly, “any further attempts to unlawfully fill the office will result in dismissals of pending cases.”
This is not the only district where Trump’s DOJ has tried to get around the judicial appointment of interim U.S. attorneys. They have tried a similar maneuver in the Eastern District of Virginia after Lindsey Halligan was disqualified.
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