WASHINGTON — A federal judiciary panel — mainly made up of judges picked by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden — voted not to extend Alina Habba as President Trump’s New Jersey US attorney, effectively ending her three-month fight for confirmation.
Habba, who had served as the Garden State’s top prosecutor since March 24, had just 120 days to serve before her interim term expired at midnight July 22.
In the absence of Senate confirmation, the Garden State’s 17 federal judges could have voted to extend her tenure.
Following the result of the vote, Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the New Jersey judges of “trying to force out [Habba] before her term expires at 11:59 p.m. Friday.”
“Their rush reveals what this was always about: a left-wing agenda, not the rule of law,” Blanche wrote on X. “When judges act like activists, they undermine confidence in our justice.”
In a signed order Tuesday, Chief US District Judge Renée Marie Bumb announced the appointment of another member of the New Jersey US Attorney’s Office, Desiree Leigh Grace, to take over for Habba — who had appointed Grace first assistant US attorney shortly after taking office.
New Jersey’s senators — Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim — both opposed Habba’s confirmation, withholding their so-called “blue slips,” which indicate home-state approval, to block the Judiciary Committee from considering Trump’s onetime personal attorney.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also pressured the state’s judiciary panel, claiming Habba had “maliciously indicted” Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) for her actions during a protest at a Newark immigration detention center in May.
“Habba is a woefully unqualified political hack who must go,” Jeffries declared in a July 18 post on X. “She must be rejected by the Federal District Court Judges who are considering whether to retain her.”
Jeffries’ action prompted a US House Ethics Committee filing from a conservative legal group, the Article III Project, which accused the House Democratic leader of “corruptly strong-arming 17 New Jersey U.S. district judges–including 15 Obama and Biden judges–to fire” Habba.
Davis also charged that Jeffries was improperly intervening in federal criminal proceedings involving McIver.
Habba had also threatened but never brought charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for the demonstration at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center months ago.
McIver has pleaded not guilty to assaulting ICE officers during the protest.
John Sarcone, Trump’s pick to lead the US attorney’s office based in Albany, had been rebuffed by a similar board of judges but apparently found a workaround when Attorney General Pam Bondi made him a special assistant US attorney.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had previously indicated he would place a hold on Sarcone or any other Trump nominees under his purview in the Empire State.
“I became ‘acting’ US attorney for an indefinite term,” Sarcone explained to the New York Law Journal, claiming he had “all the powers of the US attorney” as the top prosecutor in the Northern District of New York.
