‘Politically motivated' Alina Habba being pushed out by NJ judges who take rare step to appoint own candidate for top prosecutor
Habba's 120-day interim appointment as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey is coming to an end following Trump's nomination in March. She has yet to have any confirmation hearings in the Senate, and the state's two Democratic senators have effectively denied her from having one.
In a rare move, the state's district court judges named Habba's first assistant Desiree Leigh Grace as her successor, according to Tuesday's standing order, which was signed by the district's chief judge Renee Marie Bumb.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the judges of 'trying to force' her out of the job.
'Their rush reveals what this was always about: a left-wing agenda, not the rule of law,' said Blanche, another of Trump's former defense attorneys. 'When judges act like activists, they undermine confidence in our justice system. Alina is President Trump's choice to lead — and no partisan bench can override that.'
Habba defended Trump last year during his blockbuster fraud trial and defamation lawsuits brought by E. Jean Carroll, all of which Trump lost. She then briefly served as 'counselor to the president' before Trump named her as U.S. attorney in her home state.
She was sworn into office on March 28, which means there are just days left on her 120-day interim term.
Blanche said her term expires at midnight Friday. The judges' order takes effect Tuesday, or after Habba leaves office, whichever is later.
Trump nominated her for a full term on July 1, but the state's Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim derailed any chance of a confirmation hearing by issuing a withering statement kneecapping her credibility. Nominees typically need approval from home state senators, and Habba would also likely face hurdles securing votes from skeptical Republicans.
In a joint statement following her nomination, the senators said she 'does not meet the standard to serve' and accused her of pursuing 'frivolous and politically motivated' prosecutions within her limited time in office.
In her first two months in office, Habba brought controversial charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver, both Democrats, following a scrum with federal agents at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the state.
The mayor was charged with trespassing, but Habba announced on May 19 that she was dropping the case 'for the sake of moving forward.' A judge later reprimanded Habba for her 'embarrassing retraction.'
Baraka's 'hasty arrest', followed by Habba's dismissal of the charges two weeks later, 'suggests a worrying misstep by your office,' Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa said during a hearing that month. The mayor later sued Habba for malicious prosecution.
McIver, meanwhile, has been accused of assaulting law enforcement, which she has strenuously denied.
Criminal charges against a sitting member of Congress appeared to escalate threats from the Trump administration under an emboldened Department of Justice to target his political enemies.
Trump, whose administration wields unprecedented influence over the Justice Department, could still act to preserve his pick.
The president has the power to appoint Habba as a 'special attorney to the attorney general,' a move that could keep her on the job for another two years without any typical review or Senate vote on her qualifications.
Federal judges had similarly tried to stop John Sarcone from continuing on as U.S. attorney in upstate New York when Trump named him as a 'special attorney to the attorney general' to keep him in place.
The president also could fire Grace and install another pick, which would likely ignite yet another legal firestorm as Democratic officials and lawyers intensify their scrutiny into Trump's increasingly deferential Justice Department.
Trump has already appointed several of his former defense attorneys in top roles at the agency serving under Attorney General Pam Bondi, another Trump loyalist. John Sauer, who successfully argued for Trump's 'immunity' from criminal prosecution at the Supreme Court, was appointed U.S. solicitor general, the nation's top attorney.
Todd Blanche, who represented Trump in his hush-money trial and federal criminal indictments, is serving as deputy attorney general under Bondi.
Trump's other criminal defense attorney Emil Bove, who worked alongside Blanche on the hush-money case, is currently a principal associate deputy attorney general.
The president has nominated Bove to serve a life term as an appeals court judge for a district that spans New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Last week, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee referred his nomination to the full Senate for a vote. All Democrats on the committee walked out in protest.
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The Independent
19 minutes ago
- The Independent
Mike Johnson says Ghislaine Maxwell coming clean on Epstein case would be ‘a great service to the country'
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The Independent
an hour ago
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Women in legislatures across the US fight for ‘potty parity'
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Lisa Willner, a Democrat from Louisville, reflecting on the photos of former lawmakers, predominantly male, that line her office. The issue of potty parity may seem comic, but its impact runs deeper than uncomfortably full bladders, said Kathryn Anthony, professor emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's School of Architecture. 'It's absolutely critical because the built environment reflects our culture and reflects our population,' said Anthony, who has testified on the issue before Congress. 'And if you have an environment that is designed for half the population but forgets about the other half, you have a group of disenfranchised people and disadvantaged people.' There is hope for Kentucky's lady legislators seeking more chamber potties. A $300 million renovation of the 155-year-old Capitol — scheduled for completion by 2028 at the soonest — aims to create more women's restrooms and end Kentucky's bathroom disparity. The Bluegrass State is among the last to add bathrooms to aging statehouses that were built when female legislators were not a consideration. In the $392 million renovation of the Georgia Capitol, expanding bathroom access is a priority, said Gerald Pilgrim, chief of staff with the state's Building Authority. It will introduce female facilities on the building's fourth floor, where the public galleries are located, and will add more bathrooms throughout to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 'We know there are not enough bathrooms,' he said. Evolving equality in statehouses There's no federal law requiring bathroom access for all genders in public buildings. Some 20 states have statutes prescribing how many washrooms buildings must have, but historical buildings — such as statehouses — are often exempt. Over the years, as the makeup of state governments has changed, statehouses have added bathrooms for women. When Tennessee's Capitol opened in 1859, the architects designed only one restroom — for men only — situated on the ground floor. According to legislative librarian Eddie Weeks, the toilet could only be "flushed' when enough rainwater had been collected. 'The room was famously described as 'a stench in the nostrils of decency,'' Weeks said in an email. Today, Tennessee's Capitol has a female bathroom located between the Senate and House chambers. It's in a cramped hall under a staircase, sparking comparisons to Harry Potter's cupboard bedroom, and it contains just two stalls. The men also just have one bathroom on the same floor, but it has three urinals and three stalls. Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn, who was elected in 2023, said she wasn't aware of the disparity in facilities until contacted by The Associated Press. 'I've apparently accepted that waiting in line for a two-stall closet under the Senate balcony is just part of the job,' she said. 'I had to fight to get elected to a legislature that ranks dead last for female representation, and now I get to squeeze into a space that feels like it was designed by someone who thought women didn't exist -- or at least didn't have bladders,' Behn said. The Maryland State House is the country's oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, operational since the late 1700s. Archivists say its bathroom facilities were initially intended for white men only because desegregation laws were still in place. Women's restrooms were added after 1922, but they were insufficient for the rising number of women elected to office. Delegate Pauline Menes complained about the issue so much that House Speaker Thomas Lowe appointed her chair of the 'Ladies Rest Room Committee,' and presented her with a fur covered toilet seat in front of her colleagues in 1972. She launched the women's caucus the following year. It wasn't until 2019 that House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman to secure the top position, ordered the addition of more women's restrooms along with a gender-neutral bathroom and a nursing room for mothers in the Lowe House Office Building. 'No longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic' As more women were elected nationwide in the 20th century, some found creative workarounds. In Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, female senators didn't get a dedicated restroom until 1988, when a facility was added in the chamber's cloakroom. There had previously been a single restroom in the senate lounge, and Sen. Shirley Marsh, who served for some 16 years, would ask a State Patrol trooper to guard the door while she used it, said Brandon Metzler, the Legislature's clerk. In Colorado, female House representatives and staff were so happy to have a restroom added in the chamber's hallway in 1987 that they hung a plaque to honor then-state Rep. Arie Taylor, the state's first Black woman legislator, who pushed for the facility. The plaque, now inside a women's bathroom in the Capitol, reads: 'Once here beneath the golden dome if nature made a call, we'd have to scramble from our seats and dash across the hall ... Then Arie took the mike once more to push an urge organic, no longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic.' The poem concludes: 'In mem'ry of you, Arie (may you never be forgot), from this day forth we'll call that room the Taylor Chamber Pot.' New Mexico Democratic state Rep. Liz Thomson recalled missing votes in the House during her first year in office in 2013 because there was no women's restroom in the chamber's lounge. An increase in female lawmakers — New Mexico elected the largest female majority Legislature in U.S. history in 2024 — helped raise awareness of the issue, she said. 'It seems kind of like fluff, but it really isn't,' she said. 'To me, it really talks about respect and inclusion.' The issue is not exclusive to statehouses. In the U.S. Capitol, the first restroom for congresswomen didn't open until 1962. While a facility was made available for female U.S. Senators in 1992, it wasn't until 2011 that the House chamber opened a bathroom to women lawmakers. Jeannette Rankin of Montana was the first woman elected to a congressional seat. That happened in 1916. Willner insists that knowing the Kentucky Capitol wasn't designed for women gives her extra impetus to stand up and make herself heard. 'This building was not designed for me," she said. "Well, guess what? I'm here.' ___ Associated Press writer Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed. ____ The Associated Press' women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
