“The leadership of the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey was thrown into confusion on Tuesday as top Justice Department officials pushed back after federal judges in the state moved to appoint a new U.S. attorney,” the New York Times reports.
“The panel of federal judges rejected Alina Habba’s bid to stay in the job as the state’s U.S. attorney. Instead, they invoked a rarely used power to select a candidate of their own, Desiree Leigh Grace, an experienced prosecutor whom Ms. Habba had named as her first assistant soon after she took over as interim U.S. attorney in March.”
“But the attorney general, Pam Bondi, responded Tuesday evening with a social media post defending Ms. Habba and saying that the first assistant — Ms. Grace — ‘has just been removed.’”
Playbook: “It has the makings of the next big Trump legal fight over the judiciary, even though the place of courts in filling U.S. attorney roles until Senate confirmation has been upheld by Congress before.”
