Former Trump attorney Alina Habba resigns as top federal prosecutor in New Jersey : NPR

Alina Habba speaks during a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference February 2025 in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

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Alina Habba, President Trump’s former personal attorney, is stepping down as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor following an appeals court ruling last week that found she illegally held the position.

Habba said in a statement posted on social media Monday that she would not resign in the face of legal challenges, but would resign “to protect the stability and integrity” of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“This decision will not weaken the Department of Justice and it will not weaken me either,” she said, adding that she would remain at the DOJ as the attorney general’s senior advisor to U.S. attorneys.

Habba’s decision comes as the Justice Department has lost a series of lawsuits alleging that U.S. attorneys were not legally appointed, including in Nevada, California and Virginia.

Habba first gained national attention as one of Trump’s personal attorneys who defended him in civil and criminal cases after his first term.

After returning to the White House, Trump hired Habba in March to serve as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. He also nominated her to serve in the position permanently, but she failed to gain enough support in the U.S. Senate to gain confirmation.

As her 120-day interim term was about to expire, the U.S. District Court in New Jersey chose not to keep her in the position and instead appointed a career prosecutor, Desiree Grace, to the position.

Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired Grace, and the administration undertook a series of complex legal maneuvers to put Habba back in charge of the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office.

That sparked legal challenges that culminated in last week’s unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The court found that Habba was unlawfully serving as U.S. attorney and disqualified her from supervising cases.

The protracted legal fight over Habba’s status had paralyzed many legal proceedings in New Jersey’s federal courts, wreaking havoc throughout the system.

In a statement, Bondi criticized the appeal court’s decision against Habba.

“The court’s decision made it untenable for her to effectively run her office, with politicized judges suspending trials meant to bring violent criminals to justice,” she said. “These judges should not be able to overrule the president’s choice of attorneys to carry out the executive branch’s primary responsibility of prosecuting crimes.”

Bondi said the ministry would “request further review” of the court’s decision and is confident it will be overturned.