Booker, Kim rebuke Habba’s nomination as U.S. Attorney

New Jersey’s U.S. Senate delegation made clear they would not support Alina Habba’s appointment to a full term as U.S. attorney in the state, rebuking her performance as interim U.S. attorney in a Wednesday morning statement.

President Donald Trump nominated Habba to a four-year term as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey on Tuesday, as the 120-day limit on her controversial interim attorneyship nears. The Senate typically defers to home-state senators when confirming U.S. attorneys, and Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim made clear they disapprove of her nomination.

“The people of New Jersey deserve a US Attorney that has deep experience with law enforcement, a reputation and an approach that puts partisanship to the side, and who will work to keep our communities safe and impartially pursue justice,” their statement read. “In her short tenure as interim US Attorney, she has degraded the office and pursued frivolous and politically motivated prosecutions. It’s clear that Alina Habba does not meet the standard to serve the people of New Jersey.”

The White House announced her nomination on Tuesday.

If not the Senate, the 17 New Jersey-based District Court judges could also vote to keep Habba on. Most of New Jersey’s federal judges were nominated by Democrats, though, and one judge reprimanded her office after it dropped trespassing charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. 

Democrats have lambasted Habba throughout her term, saying the aforementioned prosecutions and investigations are politically motivated. Habba herself has said she hopes her work will help “turn New Jersey red.”

Interim U.S. attorneys can only serve for 120 days, and there has been much speculation over what’s next for Habba, who is just weeks away from reaching that deadline.

Habba has been the center of controversy since her appointment in March. She is currently a defendant in a lawsuit by Baraka, who alleges she and a federal agent illegally arrested and defamed him after a scuffle outside a migrant detention center in Newark. McIver last week pleaded not guilty to charges that she assaulted federal officers during that same scuffle; the congresswoman has said she was the victim of assault, not the other way around. Habba has also launched an “Election Integrity Task Force,” a team of federal officials working to enforce the president’s election-related executive orders; the ACLU-NJ has called the task force “a threat to our democracy.”