President Trump’s war with the judiciary escalated Tuesday with the firing of an attorney named by federal judges to replace Alina Habba, the loyalist he tapped as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor.
The judges refused to extend Habba’s temporary tenure as U.S. Attorney, instead invoking a seldom used power to appoint their own pick. But Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly intervened, shunning the “politically minded judges” for dumping Habba and terminating their selected successor.
It’s a new front in the ongoing tug-of-war between the executive and judicial branches, as the courts push back against the president’s most controversial appointments and the Trump administration doubles down.
“This is ultimately a bit of a game of chicken, where I suspect that the administration has the upper hand,” said Jonathan Petkun, a law professor at Duke University who has researched judicial administrative power.
Here’s what to know.
New Jersey US attorney’s office thrown in disarray
The back-and-forth has muddied the waters regarding the office’s leadership.
After a private vote Monday, U.S. District Court of New Jersey judges declined to retain Habba as the state’s top federal prosecutor as the clock on her interim status runs out. It issued a standing order naming attorney Desiree Leigh Grace to the role — an unusual move.
Habba represented Trump in several high-profile civil cases and, most recently, worked in the White House as a counselor to the president.
The judges had the authority to keep Habba in her role as U.S. attorney indefinitely, until her Senate confirmation, but they declined to do so. Federal law lets district courts appoint an interim U.S. attorney to fill the role if the roughly 4-month temporary stint ends before the president’s choice is confirmed.
Hours later, Bondi announced she fired Grace in response, citing the judges’ decision.
“This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers,” Bondi wrote on X.
Judges, DOJ test power
The Justice Department’s willingness to go to bat for individual U.S. Attorneys speaks to Trump’s sharp focus on the agency that he once deemed the “Department of Injustice,” amid two federal criminal cases the government mounted against him.
Trump’s close control of the agency exceeds the oversight of previous presidencies, including his own first administration. He has packed the government’s legal offices with close allies, several of whom have personally represented him.
“We are seeing a president who is applying a lot of loyalty tests,” Petkun said. “And I think he’s discovered that having to seek the advice and consent of the Senate is tiresome.”
A similar showdown played out last week in the Northern District of New York, where judges refused to extend the interim term of Trump’s pick for chief federal prosecutor there, John Sarcone III.
To get around their decision, Sarcone was named both “special attorney” to Bondi and the district’s first assistant, a move that endows him with the same powers as U.S. attorney indefinitely.
The move comes straight from the pages of a playbook Trump’s administration has drawn from since he returned to the White House, walking right up to the line where the practical effect of the law gets fuzzy.
But judges don’t typically subvert the president’s selections for U.S. attorneys, either.
“There’s lots of ‘unusual’ going on,” said Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey who now works as a white-collar litigator in New York.
During Trump’s first term, the 120-day clock ran out for his choice for New Jersey’s U.S. attorney then, too. But the judges let Craig Carpenito, Trump’s nominee, continue in the role.
“What’s unusual is that when the 120 days is coming to an end here, instead of the court saying, ‘Okay, the person who was appointed as the acting will continue in the job,’ the Court has said, ‘No, we’re appointing somebody else,’” Epner said.
The judges’ rejection of Habba follows her contentious trial period, in which two Democratic public officials faced criminal charges over an incident at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) faced a trespass charge, which has since been dropped, and Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) faces three counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with a federal officer, to which she pleaded not guilty.
At the hearing dismissing the charge against Baraka, one judge on the court suggested his arrest amounted to a “worrisome misstep” by the office.
Trump’s administration has not been deterred, with officials including Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche expressing full confidence in Habba and a total lack thereof in the court.
“They consider themselves in a battle, if not a war, with the judiciary — which is madness,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said.
Legal battle looms
The face-off sets up a legal battle that could redefine the power the judiciary can exercise over the White House and vice versa.
Epner said he does not believe the issue has been litigated before, and while it remains to be seen whether a legal fight will ensue, real questions remain about the Justice Department’s ability to remove Grace.
“It’s not clear to me that Attorney General Bondi had the authority to fire the person who was appointed by the court,” he said. “I’m confident that the president could.”
The Justice Department’s arsenal amounts to the fact that Bondi is the “boss,” Petkun said. All federal prosecutors ultimately report to her, meaning that if Grace were to assume the role as the judges ruled, her subordinates could face discipline for following Grace’s directives.
The judges, on the other hand, don’t have any mechanism to enforce their order, Tobias said.
“And I’m not sure they’re really inclined to even try to do that,” he added. “You know, lest it really deteriorate.”
Whether the power struggle between the two branches is tested could come down to if Grace herself decides to push back.
The closest comparison came during Trump’s first term, when he sought to fire Geoffrey Berman, who became U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York after the district’s judges appointed him to the role following his 120-day interim term.
Berman, who was blindsided by then-Attorney General Bill Barr’s announcement of his resignation, initially resisted, writing in a statement that he had “no intention” of quitting. The fight only ended when Berman acquiesced, after Barr agreed to install the lawyer’s deputy to the post.
Trump has fired other independent agency officials during his second presidency, many of whom challenged their removals in the courts. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is “hungry” for cases that “clamp down” on separation of powers, Petkun said, and the justices have not yet weighed the statute dictating the power for an attorney general versus a court to make such appointments.
“I suspect, honestly, it is largely up to what is in Desiree Leigh Grace’s head,” he said. “Is she going to acquiesce to this?”
