Alina Habba, Trump’s Former Lawyer, Is Unlawful U.S. Attorney, Appeals Court Says

The judges wrote that the Trump administration appeared to have become frustrated by legal and political barriers that have prevented its preferred U.S. attorneys from leading federal prosecutors’ offices.

A federal appeals court said on Monday that Alina Habba had been serving unlawfully as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, dealing a blow to the Trump administration and most likely setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court.

Ms. Habba is one of a number of U.S. attorneys whom the Trump administration has sought to keep in power through a series of unusual maneuvers even though she was neither confirmed by the Senate nor appointed by district trial court judges — the two traditional pathways. Defendants in New Jersey had challenged her authority as U.S. attorney, leading to Monday’s decision.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel, based in Philadelphia, affirmed an earlier ruling by a Federal District Court judge. The court said that the government’s tactics had violated the law as written and concluded that, overall, the Trump administration appeared to have become frustrated by legal and political barriers to placing its favored U.S. attorneys in charge.

The maneuvers undertaken to keep Ms. Habba in charge exemplified the difficulties the administration had faced, the judges wrote. And yet, they said, “the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. attorney’s office deserve some clarity and stability.”

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A federal appeals court ruled that Alina Habba has been serving unlawfully as U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

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It was not immediately clear how the ruling would affect legal proceedings in the New Jersey federal courts or whether Ms. Habba will continue to lead the office in the near future. The courts had already been operating in a kind of limbo, given her uncertain status. Certain types of criminal cases were slowed, and some grand jury proceedings were halted.

The Justice Department and a spokeswoman for Ms. Habba did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The lawyers who challenged Ms. Habba’s authority, Abbe D. Lowell, Gerald Krovatin and Norm Eisen, said in a statement that the ruling showed that “President Trump cannot usurp longstanding statutory and constitutional processes to insert whomever he wants in these positions.”

They vowed to continue their challenges to “President Trump’s unlawful appointments of purported U.S. attorneys.”

The case involving Ms. Habba may be the first of its kind to reach the Supreme Court, though it is possible that a similar case involving the U.S. attorney in Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, could be expedited by virtue of being entangled with criminal cases against President Trump’s enemies.

Last week, a federal judge found that Ms. Halligan, too, had been unlawfully appointed by the Trump administration. The Justice Department has vowed to appeal.

Ms. Habba, 41, had represented Mr. Trump in several civil cases and played a public role in his 2024 presidential campaign. But she had no experience in criminal law before the president named her in March to a 120-day interim term as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor. Mr. Trump nominated her to take on the role permanently, but her appointment was doomed by opposition from the state’s two Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim.

In July, judges in the District of New Jersey declined to extend Ms. Habba’s term and instead tapped a veteran prosecutor, Desiree Leigh Grace, to lead the office. That led Attorney General Pam Bondi to disparage the judges, fire Ms. Grace and elevate Ms. Habba to the role of acting U.S. attorney through a complicated series of maneuvers that were at the heart of the appeal.

But on Monday, the three judges — L. Felipe Restrepo, D. Brooks Smith and D. Michael Fisher — said that each of those maneuvers had violated the complex set of laws that governs vacancies at the top of federal agencies.

When Ms. Grace was fired, the Trump administration designated Ms. Habba to fill her role as first assistant — the highest-ranking position in the office given that there was no U.S. attorney — and argued that doing so meant that Ms. Habba was effectively acting U.S. attorney.

For good measure, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, also appointed Ms. Habba a “special attorney” with jurisdiction over New Jersey.

But the judges wrote that the automatic elevation of the first assistant occurred only at the actual time of the vacancy, and that neither the president nor anyone else could jury-rig that process. As for the special attorney appointment, they said, it was “plainly prohibited” by law.

The Monday decision affirms a ruling by Matthew W. Brann, the chief judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, who concluded in August that Ms. Habba had been serving as New Jersey’s U.S. attorney without legal authority since July 1.

Lawyers with the Department of Justice, which had appealed Judge Brann’s decision to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, had argued that the president’s power was broad and gave the executive branch “substantial authority to decide who is executing the criminal laws of the United States.”

Lawyers for Cesar Humberto Pina, a defendant indicted in New Jersey on fraud charges on July 10, had countered that Ms. Habba’s installation as the state’s top prosecutor violated a law known as the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

The lawyers, Mr. Lowell and Mr. Krovatin, said in court papers that Mr. Trump had “pursued a shell game to keep her in power.”

“Relying on a chimera of at least seven different statutes, the government has, at various times, described Ms. Habba as ‘interim U.S. attorney,’ ‘acting U.S. attorney,’ ‘first assistant U.S. attorney’ and ‘special attorney,’” they wrote. “But she does not have the authority to lead the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of New Jersey under any of those titles.”

Monday’s ruling was the second time in a week that a federal appeals court panel has dealt a heavy blow to Mr. Trump and Ms. Habba.

On Wednesday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Atlanta upheld nearly $1 million in penalties meted out by a lower court judge against the president and Ms. Habba for filing “frivolous” lawsuits against more than two dozen of his enemies, including Hillary Clinton, James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and the Democratic National Committee.

Devlin Barrett and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

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