Judge disqualifies justice department officials in New Jersey case

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A judge on Monday disqualified three Justice Department officials from overseeing federal prosecutions in New Jersey, saying they were appointed as part of an illegal power grab by the Trump administration.

The scathing, 130-page ruling is the latest development in a long-running fight between the judiciary and President Donald Trump over the process for selecting U.S. attorneys, who ordinarily must undergo Senate confirmation to stay in their positions.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled last year that Trump’s first choice for U.S. attorney, his former personal attorney Alina Habba, was barred from the role because she had stayed too long without Senate confirmation.

On Monday, Brann swatted down Attorney General Pam Bondi’s unusual decision to replace Habba indefinitely with three Justice Department officials who would share authority for the office.

The judge said naming the three people — Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio — to the role formerly held on an interim basis by Habba constituted yet another violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, which requires Senate confirmation.

Brann also ruled that the Trump administration’s maneuvers amounted to an “enormous assertion of Presidential power.”

“It is plain that President Trump and his top aides have chafed at the limits on their power set forth by law and the Constitution. To avoid these roadblocks, this administration frequently purports to have discovered enormous grants of executive power hidden in the vagaries and silences of the code,” Brann wrote.

Habba, who has remained with the Justice Department as a senior adviser, called the ruling “ridiculous.”

“Judges may continue to try and stop President Trump from carrying out what the American people voted for, but we will not be deterred,” she wrote on social media. “The unconstitutionality of this complete overreach into the Executive Branch, time and time again, will not succeed.”

U.S. law normally requires Senate confirmation for U.S. attorneys, and only allows people to serve in the position without that confirmation for limited periods.

Under Trump, however, the Justice Department has sought to leave unconfirmed prosecutors in their positions for far longer, often through novel personnel maneuvers that courts have later ruled to be improper.

Brann, in his decision, argues there are “at least three undisputedly legal methods” for the Trump administration to fill the New Jersey post and resolve the controversy.

“With all these options remaining, why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this District potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?” he wrote. “The Government tells us: the President doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.”

In an at times irritated and scolding tone, the judge says the Trump administration “cares far more about who is running” the federal prosecutor’s office in New Jersey than “whether it is running at all.”

“I am not fooled by the Government’s superficial arguments,” he wrote at another point.

Judges have ruled, in separate cases, that people installed as the top federal prosecutors for Nevada, Los Angeles and northern New York were all serving unlawfully.

Lindsey Halligan, who pursued indictments against a pair of Trump’s adversaries, left her position as acting U.S. attorney in Virginia after a judge concluded in November that her appointment was unlawful. The judge also ruled that indictments she brought against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey must be dismissed.

In some instances, judges have exercised their power under the law to appoint U.S. attorneys to oversee prosecutor offices until one of the president’s picks is confirmed by the Senate. The Justice Department has responded by immediately firing those judicial appointees.