Justice department retaliates by removing career prosecutor named as Habba’s replacement
Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s defence lawyer during a defamation case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, has lost her bid to become New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, with the clock running out on her interim status on Tuesday.
According to an order from New Jersey’s district court, a panel of judges declined to permanently appoint Habba to be the state’s US attorney, signaling a rebuke against the Trump administration.
Habba inflamed Democratic hostilities when she brought charges, later dropped, against the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, and the state representative LaMonica McIver after they visited a privately operated immigration detention center in Newark.
The federal judges did not offer any explanation for their decision. But the order, signed by Renee Marie Bumb, the chief federal judge for the district of New Jersey, appointed Desiree Leigh Grace, a career prosecutor whom Habba had named as her first assistant US attorney, as her replacement.
The justice department accused the panel of judges of political motives for declining Habba’s nomination, and, hours later, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, said Grace also had been removed.
