Latest news with #legalchallenge
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Criminal trial put on hold after defendant challenges Alina Habba's legal authority
President Donald Trump's effort to keep his former defense attorney in charge of the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey faces a new test after a man facing drug charges filed a motion challenging Alina Habba's authority to prosecute him. A federal judge in New Jersey on Monday put the man's trial on hold and transferred the legal challenge to a judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania to determine if Habba has the legal authority to continue acting as the United States attorney for the District of New Jersey. Trump named Habba, one of his former personal attorneys, as New Jersey's interim U.S. attorney in March, but after the Senate did not take up her confirmation before the end of her 120-day interim term, a panel of federal judges last Tuesday appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney Desiree Leigh Grace to the permanent U.S. attorney spot. MORE: Habba set to remain as top prosecutor in New Jersey after White House maneuver Just hours later, the Justice Department fired Grace, after which the White House withdrew Habba's nomination in a procedural move to allow her to continue as the acting U.S. attorney for the state. "This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges -- especially when they threaten the President's core Article II powers," Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media last week after the panel of judges appointed Grace. Thomas Mirigliano, an attorney for Julien Giraud Jr., filed a motion Sunday to dismiss his client's case, arguing that Habba now "holds office unlawfully." Giraud Jr. was charged in 2021 with drug and weapons offenses. He pleaded not guilty and was set to go to trial on Aug. 4. "By circumventing the constitutionally mandated appointment procedures, and encroaching upon judicial powers explicitly granted by statute, the executive branch has exceeded its lawful authority," Mirigliano wrote. "Thus, all subsequent prosecutorial actions taken by Ms. Habba or any Assistant U.S. Attorneys relying on her purported authority lack constitutional legitimacy and must be deemed ultra vires." The legal challenge could have sweeping implications for defendants charged in the District of New Jersey, who may file similar motions to have their cases thrown out based on the lawfulness of Habba's appointment. After a brief conference Monday, U.S. District Judge Edward Kiel put Giraud Jr.'s trial date on hold while the motion moves through the courts. Because the federal bench in New Jersey played a role in replacing Habba, the issue was referred to Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Mirigliano told ABC News that his decision to challenge Habba's authority was not political, and that his client hopes to defend himself in a fair trial. "I think it's something that, you know, needs to be dealt with in court and litigated," Mirigliano said. The New Jersey Globe was the first to report the legal development. A representative for the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
CBS News
a day ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Effort to keep Alina Habba in post as acting New Jersey U.S. attorney sparks legal challenge
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. Last week, judges on the district court in New Jersey invoked a rarely used authority when they declined to keep Habba in her role of interim U.S. attorney as her 120-day term was set to expire. In her place, the judges selected the No. 2 in the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office, Desiree Leigh Grace, to serve as U.S. attorney for the state until another candidate for the job was nominated by Mr. Trump and confirmed by the Senate. But after the district court's decision, Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Grace, a career prosecutor in the office. Grace said she intended to still serve in the role, sparking confusion over who was leading the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Garden State. The White House then pulled Habba's nomination to serve as the top prosecutor, a Justice Department official said, as part of a multi-part scheme to keep her temporarily in charge of the office. Following the withdrawal and firing, Habba was appointed first assistant U.S. attorney, Grace's job before her removal, which cleared the way for her to temporarily fill the spot of U.S. attorney in New Jersey under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. The vacancies law limits Habba's time in the position to 210 days from when the vacancy occurred. Because New Jersey federal judges have a conflict of interest in the Giraud's case due to the order to remove Habba and appoint Grace, Mirigliano's motion has been assigned to Pennsylvania Judge Matthew Brann, who was appointed to the federal district court by President Barack Obama in 2012. Grace has not indicated whether or not she would challenge Habba's control of the office and seek to enforce the judges' order authorizing her appointment. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office in New Jersey did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the motion.
News24
4 days ago
- Business
- News24
FlySafair foreign ownership dispute lands in court as deadline looms
Safair launched a legal challenge against the sanction that was imposed on it because of its foreign ownership structure. Be among those who shape the future with knowledge. Uncover exclusive stories that captivate your mind and heart with our FREE 14-day subscription trial. Dive into a world of inspiration, learning, and empowerment. You can only trial once. Start your FREE trial now Show Comments ()
Fox News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump foe Boasberg to grill DOJ over migrant flights in heated hearing
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg will hear from immigration lawyers and the Trump administration in court on Thursday as he weighs new facts and allegations at the heart of one of the biggest immigration cases of President Donald Trump's second term — setting the stage for another heated court fight. Boasberg did not immediately signal which motions he would consider during the hearing. But it comes after Boasberg found himself at the center of Trump's ire and attacks on so-called "activist" judges this year, following his March 15 temporary restraining order that sought to block Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act — a 1798 wartime immigration law — to quickly deport hundreds of Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador earlier this year. Boasberg also ordered all planes bound for El Salvador to be "immediately" returned to U.S. soil, which did not happen. His emergency order touched off a complex legal saga that ultimately spawned dozens of federal court challenges across the country — though the one brought before his court on March 15 was the very first — and later prompted the Supreme Court to rule, on two separate occasions, that the hurried removals had violated migrants' due process protections under the U.S. Constitution. And Boasberg, as a result, has emerged as the man at the center of the legal fallout. While the order itself has been in a bit of a holding pattern — the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stayed the order two months ago, when they agreed to review the ruling — Thursday's hearing could revive the bitterly divisive court fight once more. Boasberg is expected to consider plaintiffs' motions to reopen limited discovery, citing new evidence — including a recent UN report stating that, according to Salvadoran officials, the U.S. holds sole legal responsibility and custody over migrants transferred to CECOT. Other submissions include a whistleblower report from former Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni, who worked on the case shortly before his removal. Trump administration officials have repeatedly excoriated Boasberg as an "activist judge" — a term they have employed for judges who have either paused or blocked Trump's sweeping policy priorities enacted via executive order. Trump himself floated the idea that Boasberg could be impeached earlier this year— prompting Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a rare public warning. Tensions between Boasberg and the Trump administration soared to a fever pitch earlier this year after Boasberg in April said he had found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for failing to return the planes to U.S. soil, in accordance with his emergency order, and said the court had determined that the Trump administration demonstrated a "willful disregard" for his order. (The Trump administration appealed the findings to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.) In June, Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to provide all non-citizens deported from the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador to be afforded the opportunity to seek habeas relief in court, and challenge their alleged gang status. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPHis 69-page order began by invoking Franz Kafka's "The Trial," in which the protagonist, Josef K., awakens to find two strange men outside his room, who proceed to arrest him for unspecified crimes. "Such was the situation into which Frengel Reyes Mota, Andry Jose Hernandez Romero, and scores of other Venezuelan noncitizens say they were plunged on March 15, 2025," Boasberg hearing comes amid a flurry of new reports and allegations filed by plaintiffs in the case in an effort to reopen discovery.
Reuters
6 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
US Supreme Court lets Trump remove consumer product safety commissioners
WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court let Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday remove three Democratic members of the government's top consumer product safety watchdog, boosting his power over federal agencies set up by Congress to be independent from presidential control. Granting a Justice Department request, the justices lifted Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox's order that had blocked Trump from dismissing three Consumer Product Safety Commission members appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden while a legal challenge to their removal proceeds. Maddox had ruled that Trump overstepped his authority in firing Commissioners Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr. The Supreme Court in a brief unsigned order indicated that the Trump administration was likely to show that the president is authorized by the U.S. Constitution to remove Consumer Product Safety Commission members. It was the latest in a series of legal victories for Trump in which the Supreme Court halted lower court rulings that had blocked his actions. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal members dissented on Wednesday. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by fellow liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that the court had again used its "emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress." The Consumer Product Safety Commission was created by Congress in 1972 and tasked with reducing the risk to consumers of injury or death from defective or harmful products. The agency sets safety standards, conducts product-safety investigations and issues recalls of hazardous products. To establish the five-member commission's independence from direct White House control, Congress authorized the president to fire commissioners only for neglect of duty or malfeasance, not at will. Nicolas Sansone, an attorney for the fired commissioners, vowed to continue fighting for their reinstatement. "The Supreme Court's intervention deprives the public of important voices on the Consumer Product Safety Commission and sows substantial legal uncertainty," Sansone said. After being notified in May that Trump had fired them, Boyle, Hoehn-Saric and Trumka sued, arguing that their removals were without basis and that Trump had exceeded his authority. The staggered, seven-year terms of the commissioners were not set to expire until October 2025, 2027 and 2028, respectively, according to court filings. The Justice Department argued that the law shielding commissioners from being fired except for good cause violates the president's removal authority under the Constitution's provision delineating executive power. Maddox, a Biden appointee, sided with the commissioners in a June 13 ruling and ordered their reinstatement. The judge upheld the commission's removal protections under a 1935 Supreme Court precedent in a case called Humphrey's Executor v. United States that preserved similar protections for U.S. Federal Trade Commission members. Kagan wrote that Wednesday's decision "all but overturned" the Humphrey's Executor precedent. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on July 1 denied the administration's request to halt Maddox's reinstatement order. This prompted the Justice Department's emergency filing to the Supreme Court. The commissioners in their Supreme Court filing had urged the justices to reject the administration's request. They said that allowing the dismissals would deprive the American public of critical consumer safety expertise and oversight. In May, the Supreme Court in a similar case allowed Trump to remove two Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board - despite job protections for these posts - while litigation challenging those removals proceeded. The court in that ruling said the Constitution gives the president wide latitude to fire government officials who wield executive power on his behalf and that the administration "is likely to show that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power." The court on Wednesday said that the Consumer Product Safety Commission "exercises executive power in a similar manner as the National Labor Relations Board." In her dissent, Kagan criticized the conservative majority for using the court's emergency docket - an abbreviated mode of adjudication involving shorter-than-usual written briefs and no oral argument - to "override Congress's decisions about how to structure administrative agencies so that they can perform their prescribed duties." "By allowing the President to remove Commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation, the majority has negated Congress's choice of agency bipartisanship and independence," Kagan wrote. "By means of such actions, this court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of government to another," Kagan added. The Supreme Court has sided with Trump in a series of cases on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January, including clearing the way for his administration to pursue mass government job cuts, gut the Department of Education and implement some of his hardline immigration policies.
