{"id":283968,"date":"2025-07-23T01:41:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T01:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283968\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T01:41:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T01:41:12","slug":"alina-habba-trumps-ex-lawyer-replaced-as-federal-prosecutor-by-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283968\/","title":{"rendered":"Alina Habba: Trump&#8217;s ex-lawyer replaced as federal prosecutor by judges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The judges instead selected her deputy, career prosecutor Desiree Leigh Grace, to take over the role. No reason was given for the decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Habba has clashed with Democrats since taking office in March. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During her tenure, she has filed assault charges against a Democratic congressman, and opened investigations into the state&#8217;s Democratic governor and attorney general. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a post on Monday that she had the backing of Trump and the justice department, and dismissed criticism of her as &#8220;political noise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After the ruling from the 17 judges, he again took to X to accuse the judges of pushing &#8220;a left-wing agenda, not the rule of law&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When judges act like activists, they undermine confidence in our justice,&#8221; he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Exactly when Habba&#8217;s term expires is the subject of some confusion. She was named by Trump on 24 March &#8220;effective immediately&#8221;, meaning her 120 day term would expire on Tuesday. However she was officially sworn in four days later, on 28 March in an Oval Office ceremony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Both of New Jersey&#8217;s senators &#8211; who are each Democrats &#8211; have opposed her nomination to be the US attorney for the state, arguing that she has pursued &#8220;frivolous and politically motivated&#8221; prosecutions and &#8220;did not meet the standard&#8221; for the office. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is uncommon for judges to oppose an interim prosecutor from staying on, absent confirmation from the US Senate. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But a similar situation played out last week in New York, where judges also voted to block the interim US attorney from staying on. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">John Sarcone III departed the role, but will stay on as an &#8220;special attorney to the attorney general&#8221;, according to the justice department. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is unusual for judges to choose someone other than the interim US attorney, although choosing the first assistant &#8220;is generally a sensible choice,&#8221; said University Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added that Desiree Grace &#8220;is well respected in the New Jersey legal world&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The judges instead selected her deputy, career prosecutor Desiree Leigh Grace, to take over the role. No reason&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-283968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114900007820619389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}