Alina Habba, speaks after being sworn in as US Attorney General for New Jersey, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 28, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
Alina Habba, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, remains disqualified from serving in that role in either a permanent or acting capacity, a U.S. appeals court ruled Monday.
The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is the latest judicial rebuke to the Trump administration’s efforts to quickly install its preferred candidates in powerful law-enforcement jobs.
A three-judge panel on the appeals court, in a 32-page opinion, unanimously upheld an Aug. 21 ruling from a lower federal court that Habba was unlawfully appointed.
“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place,” Circuit Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote in the appellate ruling.
The unusual series of legal moves taken by the Department of Justice to install Habba, one of Trump’s former personal lawyers, as an acting U.S. attorney demonstrates “the difficulties it has faced,” Fisher wrote.
“Yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability,” the judge wrote.
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