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A federal judge is set to decide this week if President Donald Trump’s appointee Alina Habba is the rightful acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey after the president sidestepped the Senate confirmation process to keep Habba in the job.
Judge Matthew Brann did not indicate how he would rule during a hearing on Friday, but he said he would make his decision by the middle of this week.
Brann, an Obama appointee serving in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, is presiding over the matter after the chief judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New Jersey and Pennsylvania, decided the case presented too much of a conflict for the New Jersey judges.
TRUMP EXPLOITS LOOPHOLES TO KEEP HABBA IN US ATTORNEY ROLE, TRIGGERING COURT CLASH
Alina Habba, newly appointed interim US attorney for New Jersey, speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Mar. 24, 2025. (Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The fight over Habba’s authority was brought by a criminal defendant named Julien Giraud Jr., who is facing routine drug and gun charges in New Jersey.
After Trump appointed Habba, the president’s former personal defense attorney, as acting U.S. attorney, Giraud’s attorney alleged that the move violated his client’s constitutional rights because of the string of unusual moves it took to attempt to re-install Habba to the role.
Habba, who does not have a clear path to Senate confirmation, was serving in the meantime as the interim U.S. attorney, which carries a 120-day tenure.
New Jersey’s federal judges, in an unusual move, decided against extending her term and instead appointed career attorney Desiree Grace to the job. Trump fired Grace, withdrew Habba’s nomination as permanent U.S. attorney and then reinstated Habba as acting U.S. attorney, which keeps Habba in charge for at least another 210 days under federal statute.
TRUMP STANDS BY ALINA HABBA AS DOJ CLASHES WITH JUDGES OVER HER REPLACEMENT
President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom with attorneys Christopher M. Kise and Alina Habba during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on Oct. 17, 2023 in New York City. (Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
“It goes completely against what the statute is meant to protect,” Giraud’s attorney argued in court on Friday, according to the New Jersey Monitor.
The DOJ argued that the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi followed all the…
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