Toward the end of a four-hour hearing in central Pennsylvania on Friday, the judge overseeing a challenge to the constitutionality of Alina Habba’s appointment as acting U.S. attorney made a comment that will cause New Jersey Democrats’ hearts to sink.

“I think it’s very likely that Ms. Habba is going to end up, at some point down the road, as the United States attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Judge Matthew Brann said.

I don’t think Brann was signaling how he plans to rule on this matter later this week, because he noted that he has no “crystal ball.” I think what he may have intended to communicate to both sides in the matter is how this saga will likely end if it lands in the U.S. Supreme Court’s lap.

Let’s back up a bit for the uninitiated.

President Donald Trump named Alina Habba, a personal attorney who represented Trump in a civil defamation case, as New Jersey’s chief federal prosecutor back in March. That’s a role that requires confirmation from the U.S. Senate, but Trump didn’t nominate her until the tail end of her 120-day term as acting U.S. attorney. When her term was drawing to a close and there was no movement on her nomination — our two U.S. senators, both Democrats, object to Habba, and her confirmation is unlikely without their approval — New Jersey’s district judges were tasked with naming a more permanent replacement. They chose Habba’s second in command, Desiree Grace.

The Trump administration then fired Grace, Habba resigned as U.S. attorney, and the administration gave Habba the No. 2 job in the office. Because the U.S. attorney spot was now vacant, Habba automatically assumed the role of acting U.S. attorney again, this time for 210 more days, the Trump administration says. Two men facing federal criminal charges then challenged Habba’s appointment as unconstitutional, leading to Friday’s hearing in Pennsylvania (the matter was handed to Brann because New Jersey’s district judges had conflicts).

I went into Friday’s hearing with a significant bias against Habba. I’ve written before about my distaste for her swooning over an alleged sex trafficker in January. I think her stated goal to help New Jersey Republicans get elected is disqualifying. And the zeal with which she tossed Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) behind bars — on a charge so flimsy she had to retreat just days later — was obscene.

Nothing about the hearing changed my mind on whether Habba is fit to serve as U.S. attorney. But the arguments persuaded me the law is murky enough that the fight to prevent her from staying in office will fail.

There’s no smoking gun here, despite the valiant efforts on both sides to argue their case to Brann. Yes, the Trump administration’s maneuvering was an obvious end run around the U.S. Senate confirmation process — but the administration’s reliance on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which allows first assistants in various government agencies to be the default acting No. 1, is convincing. And the challengers’ response is less so. They argue that the statute is automatic, triggered by a vacancy — meaning the U.S. attorney spot was vacant when Habba resigned, and so she can’t resume that position by later taking the No. 2 spot.

“What happened here was the president or the executive, they terminated the first assistant in order to backfill the role, and Ms. Habba then created the resignation — well, she resigned, created the vacancy to fill it herself. It’s circular. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. And it goes completely against what the statute is meant to protect,” said attorney Thomas Mirigliano, who is representing a man seeking to nullify Habba’s appointment.

Henry C. Whitaker, representing the Trump administration, countered that the vacancy in the U.S. attorney post existed not just at the moment Habba resigned — it also existed when she subsequently accepted the No. 2 post that allows her to become acting U.S. attorney for a new, 210-day term.

“The vacancy is a continuing condition,” Whitaker said.

Like I said, Brann gave no hint how he might rule on this — though he wisely conceded that he will not be the final word and said Habba and the New Jersey judges who tried to replace her may have to find a way to coexist. The judges, Brann noted, are appointed for life and are not likely to resign.

“They’re going to have to find a way to maneuver things together after this immediate issue, which is quite interesting, is resolved,” Brann said.

Brann is smart enough to realize that this matter may only be resolved by the nation’s highest court. The Roberts court has embraced the power of the executive, most recently in its June 27 decision limiting the power of federal judges to institute universal injunctions. Do we think the same justices, faced with a controversy over who gets to pick the U.S. attorney of New Jersey, will side with our state’s federal judges over Donald Trump?

If the Trump administration wins here, it may be a short-lived victory. Its own arguments on Habba hinge on her current appointment lasting for 210 days. That means her term has an expiration date of mid-February 2026, giving the administration plenty of time to find someone who has the qualifications to win confirmation from the U.S. Senate. Or enough time to think of a new legal strategy to keep her in the post no matter what.

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The Trump administration’s contempt for the law and for the people of New Jersey is on full display yet again in the new fight over control of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

With its push to keep a Trump loyalist as our state’s chief federal prosecutor, the White House is not only ignoring the law, but also tarnishing the reputation of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and sowing chaos in a state that’s already seeing enough chaos these days, thank you very much.

Here are the details: Alina Habba, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump, was appointed interim U.S. attorney back in March, but her 120-day appointment expires this week and Trump only just nominated her for confirmation by the U.S. Senate, so her nomination has yet to move. Federal law says the state’s federal judges can name her replacement until the Senate votes to confirm her, so on Tuesday they announced they chose Habba’s deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace.

The judges did not say why they rejected the Trump administration’s push to keep Habba in the post. I have some ideas:

• Her public slobbering over alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate in January.
• Her stated pledge to use her job as prosecutor to help get Republicans elected in New Jersey.
• Her prosecution of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a case that was so nakedly partisan she had to drop it mere days later.
• Her announcement of an investigation into our governor and attorney general on Fox News, a probe that she appears to have created just so she could go viral.
• Her subpoena of Gov. Phil Murphy over some dumb but obviously not criminal comments he made in February suggesting he might hide an undocumented immigrant at his home.

Whatever the reason, federal law gives our district judges the power to choose the U.S. attorney when the president’s nominee is not confirmed. So they did, and now the Trump administration is accusing them of colluding with Democrats to punish Dear Leader.

“This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said on social media.

“The district judges in NJ just proved this was never about law — it was about politics,” said Bondi deputy Todd Blanche.

This is dangerous nonsense. Bondi and Blanche know that federal law is on the judges’ side here, but they’re taking advantage of the public’s ignorance of the law to cast the judges as enemies of the state.

I worry about how this will end. The Trump administration claimed they removed Grace, whose sole crime is that the federal judges who oversee cases in New Jersey think she’s better qualified than Habba (considering Grace has worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for nearly a decade, that’s unquestionably true). But Grace told the New Jersey Globe she intends to take over as U.S. attorney on Saturday. I can’t imagine that will sit well with all the president’s men.

If what’s happening in New York is any indication, we’re stuck with Habba. Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney in New York’s northern district, John Sarcone, was not chosen to remain in the position by that district’s judges, so the president gave him a different title, and now Sarcone is still the district’s acting U.S. attorney.

Good news for Trump. Bad news for anyone interested in a government that works for anyone but him.

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.

The Trump lawyer who is now New Jersey’s acting U.S. attorney ratcheted up the buffoonery this week with her claim that she will investigate our governor and attorney general.

Alina Habba appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Thursday to say she’s opening an investigation into Gov. Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matt Platkin over the Immigrant Trust Directive, a state order that bars state and local police officers from becoming de facto immigration agents.

“We are to take all criminal, violent criminals and criminals, out of this country and completely enforce federal law, and anybody who does get in that way, in the way of what we are doing, which is not political, it is simply against crime, will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment, and I will come after them hard. Those investigations will start immediately,” Habba told Hannity.

A normal prosecutor would probably keep this under wraps so her targets wouldn’t know from minute one that they’re being investigated. But for all we know, there is no actual investigation. Habba, clearly reveling in the attention this high-profile appointment has granted her, wanted to say something that would make headlines, so she did. I wouldn’t be surprised if her on-air threat is as far as this alleged investigation goes.

That Habba is targeting Murphy and Platkin for the Immigrant Trust Directive is not a surprise. Anti-immigration hard-liners like Habba have twisted efforts like the directive to claim that it does something it does not. It does not bar police from working with immigrant agents to arrest suspected criminals. What it does is prevent local cops from seeing a brown person on the street and asking for their papers. But the facts about the directive are not important for Habba; what’s important is she can use it to promise retribution for her — and President Trump’s — political foes.

Multiple judges have rejected legal challenges to the Immigrant Trust Directive, including one judge appointed by President Trump himself.

Murphy was asked about Habba’s claim on a podcast recorded Friday. His response was fairly muted considering Habba basically threatened to arrest him, but at least he defended his administration’s efforts to protect the countless immigrants living in New Jersey who have done nothing wrong.

“We go after criminals hard, period, full stop, regardless of their immigration status. What we don’t do is we don’t go after somebody for jaywalking or where there’s no probable cause of a crime. And we’re very clear about that,” Murphy said.

Platkin, speaking at an unrelated press conference in Newark, was a bit more knives-out when asked about Habba.

“I hope she starts doing her job,” Platkin said.

Seems unlikely. The U.S. attorney gig is a plum appointment, but it’s probably a bit of a slog overseeing nearly 200 attorneys and handling some complicated cases. That’s probably why we didn’t see a lot of Habba’s predecessors, Craig Carpenito and Philip Sellinger, yet Habba is out here cosplaying as a cop for the New York Post and targeting Democrats on Fox News. That sounds a lot more fun than doing work.

Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, told me Habba’s threat against Murphy and Platkin is in line with the Trump administration’s focus on TV ratings and viral social media posts rather than governing. It’s also part of a broader attempt by the administration to make sure their opponents know they could end up in jail or, if possible, deported.

“They’ll go after political opponents, whether those are individuals, whether those are student protestors, whether those are institutions like law firms and universities, or whether those are state governments,” Torres said

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.