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Latest Breaking News

BumRushDaShow

(158,625 posts) Mon Jul 28, 2025, 08:01 PM Jul 28

Effort to keep Alina Habba in post as acting New Jersey U.S. attorney sparks legal challenge

Source: CBS News

July 28, 2025 / 3:14 PM EDT

Washington — President Trump's attempt to keep Alina Habba, his former personal lawyer, as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor has prompted a legal challenge, as a man facing drug and gun charges has alleged that she holds the office unlawfully. A lawyer for the man, Julien Giraud Jr., asked a federal judge Sunday to toss the indictment or bar Habba or any assistants acting under her authority from exercising prosecutorial powers in the case.

He argues that Habba's appointment Thursday to serve as the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey violates the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, and said that a district court's decision appointing her then-deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace, to temporarily fill the role as the state's top prosecutor is legally controlling. Giraud is "facing an imminent criminal trial proceeding under questionable legal authority," under Habba, his attorney Thomas Mirigliano wrote in the motion.

Mirigliano argued that Habba's reappointment after her nomination to become New Jersey's U.S. attorney is also unconstitutional. Politico first reported the request stemming from Habba's position. "By circumventing the constitutionally mandated appointment procedures, and encroaching upon judicial powers explicitly granted by statute, the executive branch has exceeded its lawful authority," he wrote, adding that allowing the prosecution of his client to proceed under the current landscape "would endorse an unconstitutional executive usurpation of judicial authority."

The filing from Giraud is the latest twist in Habba's tenure as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, which came to a head last week as she neared the end of her limited term serving temporarily in the role. Federal law restricted Habba's time in the post to 120 days, unless the federal district court in the state extended her tenure or she won Senate confirmation. But New Jersey's two senators, Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim, opposed her nomination, making it highly unlikely it would advance through the upper chamber.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alina-habba-new-jersey-us-attorney-legal-challenge/

Link to FILING (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.557842/gov.uscourts.njd.557842.99.0.pdf

2 replies

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Highlight:

Effort to keep Alina Habba in post as acting New Jersey U.S. attorney sparks legal challenge (Original Post) BumRushDaShow Jul 28 OP

The only consolation were she to win this fight is that she is so incompetent Marie Marie Jul 28 #1

Deadline: Legal Blog-How a routine drug case could decide Alina Habba's fate as U.S. attorney LetMyPeopleVote Jul 29 #2

Marie Marie

(10,476 posts)

1. The only consolation were she to win this fight is that she is so incompetent

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Mon Jul 28, 2025, 08:29 PM

Jul 28

that she would lose most of the bogus cases she would bring against any person place or thing that aggrieved Trump.

LetMyPeopleVote

(168,402 posts)

2. Deadline: Legal Blog-How a routine drug case could decide Alina Habba's fate as U.S. attorney

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Tue Jul 29, 2025, 03:25 PM

Jul 29

Last edited Tue Jul 29, 2025, 05:28 PM - Edit history (1)

A New Jersey defendant argues that Habba can’t lawfully prosecute the case because she isn’t legally the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/alina-habba-us-attorney-julien-giraud-lawsuit-rcna221696

When Julien Giraud Jr. was federally indicted on drug and gun charges last year in New Jersey, he had little reason to think his case would double as a challenge to the lawfulness of Alina Habba’s position as U.S. attorney. But that challenge is now playing out, as the defendant argues that the Trump ally isn’t lawfully serving in her position and therefore the office she purports to lead lacks the authority to prosecute him.....

So what’s Giraud’s argument? In a motion filed Sunday ahead of his trial set for next week, his lawyer Thomas Mirigliano wrote that Habba’s reappointment violated federal law because the fact that Trump submitted Habba’s nomination to the Senate prevents her from serving in an acting capacity, regardless of whether Trump subsequently withdrew her nomination or not. He argued that being prosecuted by an unauthorized U.S. attorney undermines his due process rights, so he asked U.S. District Judge Edward Kiel, the New Jersey judge handling his case, to dismiss the indictment or at least to block Habba or any prosecutor acting under her authority from prosecuting him.

The New York Times reported that federal court proceedings throughout New Jersey “were abruptly canceled on Monday because of uncertainty over” Habba’s authority, citing Giraud’s case and others. Habba is one of several lawyers who represented Trump in his personal capacity and have gone on to high-ranking Justice Department posts during his second term.

After Giraud filed his motion, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which covers New Jersey and nearby states, tapped Pennsylvania’s chief federal trial judge for the state’s middle district, Matthew Brann, to preside over the matter. The chief circuit judge made the move under a law that says chief circuit judges “may, in the public interest, designate and assign temporarily any district judge of the circuit to hold a district court in any district within the circuit.”.....

Brann ordered a status conference with the parties to take place Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., so the direction in which the matter is headed could become clearer later Tuesday. Whatever happens at the trial court level might not be the last word on this consequential and thorny issue, so this could be just the start of drawn-out litigation.

This will be a fun case to watch.

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