When President Donald Trump nominated Alina Habba for a full term as U.S. Attorney on July 1, he ran into a long-standing and robust Senate norm: nominees for U.S Attorney and District Court judgeships need consent forms known as blue slips from their local home-state senators in order for the Senate to take up their nomination.
Since New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim were resolutely opposed to Habba’s nomination, the Senate never acted on it before the expiration of Habba’s interim appointment, drawing the ire of both Trump and Habba herself. But in a series of social media posts this morning, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) defended the blue-slip process and said Habba wouldn’t have had the votes to be confirmed as long as she didn’t have blue-slip approval.
“A U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not hv the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t hv the votes to get out of cmte,” Grassley wrote in one of his characteristically terse posts. “As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE.”
He also noted that the committee was given minimal information about Habba’s nomination and little time to process it; the day Habba was nominated was either the day her 120-day interim tenure expired (according to one federal judge) or around four weeks before it expired (according to the Trump administration).
“Habba was withdrawn as the President’s nominee for New Jersey U.S. Atty on July 24 &the Judic cmte never received any of the paperwork needed for the Senate to vet her nomination,” Grassley wrote.
After it became clear that the Senate wouldn’t take up Habba’s nomination in time, the Trump administration executed a complex series of maneuvers to keep her in office as acting U.S. Attorney – in defiance of New Jersey’s federal judges, who had voted to install a career prosecutor in her place. One of those steps was withdrawing Habba’s nomination, since pending nominees can’t serve as acting U.S. Attorneys.
Last week, however, Pennsylvania federal judge Matthew Brann ruled that Habba’s appointment had been improper for several reasons, and declared that she didn’t have the authority to continue prosecuting cases in New Jersey. Brann also issued an immediate stay of his own ruling pending appeal to the Third Circuit, so Habba’s status remains in limbo for now.
In the days since Brann issued his ruling, Habba and top Justice Department officials have attacked everything that has stood in Habba’s way – and one of their targets is the blue-slip process. During a TV appearance over the weekend, Habba argued that blue slips prevent Trump from choosing his own preferred nominees from states with Democratic senators.
“Senator Booker and Senator Kim had absolutely every right to vote no for me for the U.S. Attorney position,” Habba said, per Politico. “But I had the right as the nominee to get in front of the Senate and to be voted on, to be vetted. I never even got there.” (Habba also later accused Grassley of ”doing the dirty work of Thom Tillis, Corey Booker and Andy Kim” by keeping blue slips in place.)
But Grassley noted that the same process helped Republicans block many of President Joe Biden’s nominees during his tenure: “In Biden admin Republicans kept 30 LIBERALS OFF BENCH THAT PRES TRUMP CAN NOW FILL W CONSERVATIVES,” he wrote today.
Booker and Kim, for their part, have shown no signs of softening on their opposition to Habba. After Brann heard arguments from both sides of the appointment dispute on August 15, the two senators said in a joint statement that they hoped Brann would nullify Habba’s authority and that the Trump administration would work to “identify and nominate a permanent, qualified individual who will put the interests of the people of New Jersey above all else.”
This story was updated at 4:07 p.m. with further comment from Habba.