Judges Derail Trump’s Pick, Force Habba Out of Top Prosecutor Role in NJ – RedState
President Trump’s quest to nominate Alina Habba, his former personal attorney, as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey hit another legal hurdle Monday after an appeals court ruled that Habba was illegally serving as the state’s top federal prosecutor. It’s the latest step in a months-long game of legal chess in which courts have repeatedly struck down the president’s efforts to place Habba in the important blue state role.
In a unanimous vote, a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Philadelphia, said a lower court ruling was correct in disqualifying Habba from the position. The panel concluded that the Trump administration’s attempts to keep Habba in this role ” [permit] anyone to serve as U.S. Attorney indefinitely,” with the panel adding that “this should raise a red flag.”
READ MORE: Breaking: Federal Judge Rules Appointment of Trump’s Personal Lawyer as U.S. Attorney Illegal
Alina Habba rejected by federal judges for her permanent role as US Attorney for the District of New Jersey
Here are more details on the decision:
“Under the delegation theory of government, Habba could avoid the challenge of presidential nomination and Senate confirmation and serve as de facto U.S. Attorney indefinitely,” the ruling said.
NEW: A federal appeals court has disqualified Alina Habba as U.S. attorney for New Jerseyhttps://t.co/nC5V4E1npE
-Axios (@axios) December 1, 2025
This saga began in March when Trump appointed Habba to the position on an acting basis, which meant she could serve as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey for 120 days. The president then nominated her to the permanent position in June, but the U.S. Senate did not act on her nomination; he withdrew his candidacy on July 24.
That same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Habba to the role of special counsel who could conduct “any type of legal proceeding…that United States Attorneys are authorized to conduct.” That decision led U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann to rule in August that Habba had acted without legal authority over the previous two months and that his actions could be considered void.
RedState’s text did a masterful job of summarizing the legal wrangling around Habba’s nomination here; he concluded:
Due to Senator Thune’s inability or refusal to break the impasse blocking the nominations, several acting U.S. attorneys face a vote from a panel of judges. Most of them are destined for administration, but a few seem doomed to follow Habba’s rejection.
To address Streiff’s point, Alina Habba isn’t the only Trump appointee to have her job mired in a legal quagmire.
Lindsay Halligan, Trump’s chosen prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia, had her nomination deemed “defective” last month. And Bill Essayli, the president’s pick to be acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, was disqualified after a federal judge ruled in October that Essayli illegally held the position because his nomination was not reviewed by the U.S. Senate.
As for Monday’s decision against Alina Habba, the panel had a message for the Trump administration:
“It is evident that the current administration has been frustrated by certain legal and policy obstacles to appointing its appointees,” U.S. Circuit Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote in the 32-page ruling.
“Her efforts to elevate her preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties she has faced – yet the citizens of New Jersey and loyal employees of the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability.
As of this writing, the Trump White House has not commented on the decision. The next steps could be for the administration to ask a full panel of 3rd Circuit judges to reconsider the decision — or to go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Editor’s Note: Radical left-wing judges are doing everything they can to cripple President Trump’s agenda to make America great again.
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