President Donald Trump’s U.S. attorney in Delaware abruptly resigned Friday amid a growing standoff over the administration’s ability to install loyalists in powerful prosecutorial roles while bypassing Senate confirmation.
Julianne Murray, a former chair of the Delaware Republican Party who the Justice Department had appointed as interim U.S. attorney in the state this summer, announced her departure in a statement posted to social media. She said a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit disqualifying Trump’s U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, had made it clear to her she could no longer stay in her role.
Habba resigned her post on Monday after the court ruled she had been unlawfully appointed through a process administration officials had also used to keep Murray in her role. The Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit handles appeals arising from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the U.S. Virgin Islands and its rulings extend throughout that jurisdiction.
“I naively believed that I would be judged on my performance and not politics,” Murray said in her statement. “Unfortunately that was not the case.”
Murray said she will continue to work for the Justice Department in a different role but did not indicate what her job might be. Her former office will now be overseen by her first assistant U.S. attorney, Ben Wallace, who has worked as a prosecutor in the office since 2023.
Murray’s initial appointment as interim U.S. attorney in July drew controversy given her past role with the Delaware Republican Party. While the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys are appointed through a political process and are often affiliated with the party of the president, their jobs have traditionally been viewed as largely apolitical. Most come from traditional legal backgrounds, not openly partisan roles.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, his administration has made installing loyalists in these position a priority. In addition to Murray and Habba, his former personal lawyer, the Justice Department has appointed other controversial allies to U.S. attorney roles. Those included Bill Essayli, a former GOP state assemblyman named U.S. attorney in Los Angeles; Sigal Chattah, a former GOP committeewoman in Nevada; and Lindsey Halligan, another former Trump lawyer, in eastern Virginia.
Federal law limits those interim appointments to a period of 120 days and empowers the federal courts to appoint a replacement if there is no Senate-confirmed nominee by that deadline. But when the terms of Murray, Habba and the others expired, the Justice Department sought to keep Trump’s picks in their roles through complex maneuvers that the 3rd Circuit ruled were illegal.
Normally, the president must formally nominate his U.S. attorney picks and they must be approved in a Senate vote. In the case of Murray and the others, their home-state senators — all Democrats — had said they would withhold their support should Trump formally nominate them to the role.
That decision effectively killed any chance of their nominations moving forward under a Senate custom, known as the “blue slip,” which allows home-state senators to veto judicial and U.S. attorney nominees for their states.
Trump has railed against the “blue slip” tradition, saying it interferes with his ability to install his chosen candidates. Sen. Chuck Grassley — the Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee — has resisted pressure from the president to abandon the custom, saying it gives senators an important voice in deciding who will fill powerful law enforcement roles in their states.
When Murray’s 120-day interim term expired in November, Delaware’s federal judges opted not to reappoint her but declined to name a replacement. The Justice Department — as it has in a number of legal fights challenging Trump’s U.S. attorney picks — maintained it had the authority to keep Murray in her role.
Unlike Habba, Chattah, Essayli and Halligan, whose appointments federal courts have all ruled to be unlawful, Murray had not drawn a legal challenge questioning her legitimacy. Murray said in her statement Friday, the 3rd Circuit’s reasoning in Habba’s case extended to the way she was appointed in Delaware.
She added, “the people that think they have chased me away will soon find out that they are mistaken.”
“I did not get here by being a shrinking violet,” she said.
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