https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judges-reject-trump-pick-top-new-jersey-federal-prosecutor-doj-removes-successor-2025-07-22/
Archive link to Reuters article: https://archive.is/PfbGd
Democrats condemned the removal of Grace. "The firing of a career public servant, lawfully appointed by the court, is another blatant attempt to intimidate anyone that doesn't agree with them and undermine judicial independence," Democratic U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim from New Jersey said in a joint statement.
Habba's brief tenure as New Jersey's interim U.S. attorney included the filing of multiple legal actions against Democratic elected officials.
Prior to March when Trump appointed Habba, she had never worked as a prosecutor.
She has represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room.
In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1 million for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump's reputation in the investigation into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
To quote the Alt National Park Service
The Justice Department’s decision to fire a judge-appointed U.S. Attorney and reinstate Trump’s preferred pick, without Senate confirmation, isn’t just unusual. It’s a direct attack on the separation of powers that defines American democracy.
Here’s why this matters. Our government was designed with three separate branches(executive, legislative, and judicial) each with its own role to prevent abuse. In this case, federal law clearly states that when a temporary U.S. Attorney’s term expires and the Senate hasn’t confirmed a replacement, federal judges have the authority to appoint someone to fill the role. That’s exactly what happened: the judges followed the law and appointed Desiree Leigh Grace. But instead of respecting that legal process, the Trump administration fired Grace and reinstalled Alina Habba, even though the Senate never confirmed her.
This isn’t just a bureaucratic reshuffle. It’s the president asserting that he(and he alone) gets to decide who prosecutes federal crimes, regardless of what the law or the courts say. That’s not Article II authority. That’s executive overreach.
If this stands, it opens the door for any president to ignore judicial checks and install political loyalists across the justice system without oversight. It means the courts can be overridden when they get in the way. That’s not how our system is supposed to work, and it sets a dangerous precedent for authoritarian control over the rule of law.
Originally Posted By u/undercurrents At 2025-07-23 12:20:56 AM | Source
