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<\/p>\n Email Link<\/p>\n \n A federal judge on Thursday said President Donald Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer Alina Habba is not legally serving as the acting US attorney for New Jersey, laying the groundwork for a potential review of the Trump administration\u2019s method for installing some top prosecutors around the country.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFaced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,\u201d wrote Judge Matthew Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, who was transferred two cases challenging her authority.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAnd because she is not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties of the office in an acting capacity, she must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases,\u201d Brann, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, added in his 77-page opinion<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The ruling could have far-reaching consequences beyond US attorneys, legal experts say. The Justice Department plans to appeal, an agency official said.\n <\/p>\n \n Other US attorneys beyond Habba are serving in similar circumstances. In July, John Sarcone, who is now serving as the acting US attorney in the Northern District of New York, failed to receive an indefinite extension of his interim status from federal judges.\n <\/p>\n \n The Trump administration has found other loopholes for US attorneys who have struggled to receive interim status extensions. Bilal Essayli in the District of Central California, and Sigal Chattah in the District of Nevada, were both appointed as acting US attorneys before federal judges could reject an extension of their interim status.\n <\/p>\n \n Habba\u2019s authority as the top federal law enforcement officer in the state was challenged by defendants in two criminal cases who argued her recent appointment as acting US attorney is invalid because it violates federal law.\n <\/p>\n \n Amid the uncertainty of who is in charge, judges cancelled plea hearings and sentencings, and grand juries have not returned any indictments in recent weeks.\n <\/p>\n \n Defendants Julien Giraud Jr. and Julien Giraud III moved to dismiss their indictment on drug-related charges, arguing Habba\u2019s appointment was illegal. Another defendant, Cesar Pina, who is accused of defrauding investors, also sought to dismiss his indictment, arguing it was handed up after Habba\u2019s term expired.\n <\/p>\n \n The judge\u2019s opinion \u201cunderscores that this Administration cannot circumvent the congressionally mandated process for confirming U.S. Attorney appointments,\u201d Pina\u2019s attorneys Abbe Lowell and Gerald Krovatin said Thursday.\n <\/p>\n \n Under federal law, interim US attorneys can only hold the position for 120 days, after which district judges can appoint a temporary US attorney if the administration\u2019s choice is not confirmed by the Senate. When there is no US attorney, under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act<\/a>, the first assistant by default becomes the acting US attorney. In this case, the judges declined to appoint Habba and instead went with the first assistant, who was promptly fired<\/a> by the Justice Department.\n <\/p>\n \n Anne Joseph O\u2019Connell, a professor at Stanford Law School who studies administrative law, said the ruling could have a broad impact on the administration.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt opens up a challenge to any acting official serving under Federal Vacancies Reform Act who was named first assistant to Senate-confirmed slot after the last confirmed person departed. \u201cThat\u2019s acting US attorneys but it\u2019s not limited to US attorneys,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cModern agencies run on delegation in the face of a dysfunctional appointments process,\u201d O\u2019Connell added. \u201cIf only the head of the department can do these vacant lower level Senate-confirmed jobs, agencies will grind to a halt.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Democrats have placed holds on Trump\u2019s picks for US attorneys preventing all of them from a full Senate vote. The terms of several of Trump\u2019s interim choices are expiring and the Trump administration has extended some of their terms using the FVRA. Habba\u2019s is the only one, so far, whose appointment has been challenged.\n <\/p>\n \n The Justice Department argued the president has broad authority to place whoever he wants into the top federal job.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe President has made clear that he will not permit anyone other than Ms. Habba to fill the current vacancy in the office of the United States Attorney on a temporary basis. That is his prerogative; this Court cannot second-guess it,\u201d prosecutors wrote in a court filing.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is important that a Department of Justice component is overseen by someone who has the backing of the Executive Branch, and that the USAO can continue with its important work even when there is no Senate-confirmed, interim, or acting U.S. Attorney,\u201d prosecutors wrote in another filing.\n <\/p>\n \n In his opinion Thursday, Brann also appeared to nod to the Justice Department\u2019s hostile stance toward the New Jersey district judges who selected a career prosecutor over Habba.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cA government operating by handshake and mutual understanding may go along swimmingly, but only for so long as everyone is willing to play by the rules. Those rules are the result of good-faith compromise \u2013 a concession by one branch is premised on the understanding that another branch will not abuse the benefit,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cSo even if a practice of making exceptions to the letter of the law exists, it is likely cabined by other practice based rules that limit the scope of those exceptions. When one side decides that the practice-based limits no longer apply, what then?\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n At a hearing last week in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Brann recognized that the Justice Department has limited means to pursue an appeal at this stage in a case, but he suggested he would tee up the decision for appellate review.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think we may be getting on the same page to tee this up, because I have a feeling \u2026. that someone is going to be unsatisfied with my ruling,\u201d the judge said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think it\u2019s very likely that Ms. Habba is going to end up, at some point down the road, as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. I don\u2019t know that. I don\u2019t have a crystal ball. But I think that\u2019s the case,\u201d the judge added, according to a transcript of the hearing.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN\u2019s Casey Gannon contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n \n This story has been updated with additional developments.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link A federal judge on Thursday said President Donald Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer Alina Habba…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-87203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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