Alina Habba lacks the authority to continue serving as the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, the Third Circuit declared today in a ruling that strikes at the heart of President Donald Trump’s attempts to unilaterally appoint U.S. Attorneys around the country.
The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel affirms what District Judge Matthew Brann had previously ruled in August: that the unprecedented maneuvers the Trump administration had used to keep Habba in office ran afoul of federal appointment laws.
“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place,” Senior Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote for the court. “Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced – yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability.”
Given the gravity and national import of the case, an appeal seems likely, meaning that Habba’s fate could ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Already, other cases revolving around similar issues have begun emerging around the country; in the months since Brann’s original Habba ruling, federal judges have also disqualified Trump-picked U.S. Attorneys in Virginia, Nevada, and California under similar logic.
Today’s Third Circuit ruling was issued by a trio of Pennsylvania judges: Fisher and D. Brooks Smith, both senior judges appointed by George W. Bush, and L. Felipe Restrepo, appointed by Barack Obama.
And unlike Brann, the judges did not immediately issue a stay of their own ruling; Habba has remained provisionally in office for the last three months thanks to Brann’s decision to prevent his own ruling from taking effect pending appeal. It’s not immediately clear whether the Justice Department will request (or receive) a stay, and what will happen to Habba if it doesn’t.
Habba, Trump’s former personal lawyer, has held New Jersey’s top federal law enforcement job since March of this year, when Trump named her as the interim U.S. Attorney. Habba, who had no prior prosecutorial experience, quickly took an unusually political approach to her role, saying top Democrats like Cory Booker and Phil Murphy had “failed the state of New Jersey” and charging a Democratic congresswoman, LaMonica McIver, with assault.
Without Senate confirmation or a vote of New Jersey’s District Court judges, however, Habba’s term was limited to 120 days. When that term ran out in July, the state’s judges declined to retain her and voted to appoint First Assistant U.S. Attorney Desiree Grace as the new acting U.S. Attorney.
But Trump’s Justice Department was unwilling to let Habba be supplanted, and took an extraordinary set of measures that involved firing Grace and appointing Habba as the new First Assistant U.S. Attorney, in theory elevating her to acting U.S. Attorney by default. The scheme quickly drew legal challenges from a pair of defendants who said Habba should not be allowed to prosecute them, and Brann agreed with them in his August ruling.
The arguments against Habba’s legitimacy revolved around a few key points: her appointment as First Assistant U.S. Attorney did not qualify her for the acting U.S. Attorney spot because she had not held that role when the vacancy first arose in January; her nomination as U.S. Attorney had been submitted to the Senate (and quickly blocked by Senators Andy Kim and Cory Booker), preventing her from serving in the same role in an acting capacity; and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s efforts to name her as a “Special Attorney” with the powers of the U.S. Attorney ran afoul of exclusivity laws regarding U.S. Attorney posts.
There was also a dispute – though not one litigated in the Third Circuit appeal – over when, exactly, Habba’s initial 120-day appointment ran out. One interpretation gave Trump 120 days total for interim appointments, meaning that the brief three-week tenure of John Giordano counted towards that total; another interpretation reset the clock with every new appointment, which would give the president wide latitude to name successive interim U.S. attorneys as he saw fit.
The Third Circuit panel did not weigh in on the interim timeline debate, but in all other major matters, it sided with the defendants and against Habba.
“Habba is not the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey by virtue of her appointment as First Assistant U.S. Attorney because only the first assistant in place at the time the vacancy arises automatically assumes the functions and duties of the office under the [Federal Vacancies Reform Act],”Fisher wrote.
“Additionally, because Habba was nominated for the vacant U.S. Attorney position, the FVRA’s nomination bar prevents her from assuming the role of Acting U.S. Attorney,” he continued. “Finally, the Attorney General’s delegation of all the powers of a U.S. Attorney to Habba is prohibited by the FVRA’s exclusivity provision.”
It remains to be seen what happens with the U.S. Attorney’s office next, but Kim and Booker said in a joint statement that they hope the Trump administration will now be willing to work with them to find a nominee who can pass their muster and win Senate confirmation.
“To restore public trust in our state’s chief federal prosecutor, we urge the administration to follow the long-established process and work with us to identify a qualified U.S. Attorney for New Jersey – one who will enforce the law fairly, impartially, and with full respect for due process,” the senators said. “They must understand that they are bound to the legal requirements for nominating U.S. Attorneys and we will not allow Donald Trump to jeopardize the safety of New Jerseyans.”
This story was updated at 12:48 p.m. with comment from Booker and Kim.
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July 22, 2025