Judge Says Alina Habba Has Acted Without Legal Authority

New York|Judge Says Alina Habba Has Acted Without Legal Authority

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that Alina Habba, the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, had been acting without legal authority for more than a month, thrusting the state’s already paralyzed federal court system further into disarray and raising questions about the president’s power to choose his own top federal prosecutors.

“Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” the judge, Matthew W. Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, wrote.

“Because she is not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties of the office in an acting capacity,” he added, “she must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases.”

He paused any outcome of his own decision, which will allow the United States to fight for Ms. Habba in a federal appeals court. Still, the ruling was a remarkable rebuke to a Justice Department that has undertaken extraordinary measures to keep its preferred U.S. attorneys in their jobs.

For weeks, questions over whether Ms. Habba was legally authorized to be New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor have left the state’s district court system at a standstill, delaying hearings, plea agreements, grand jury proceedings and at least one trial.

Judge Brann noted last week during a hearing on the matter that any decision he made could be expected to be re-evaluated by the Court of Appeals, underscoring the gravity of the legal questions posed. But he also indicated that swift action was urgently needed in order to return the state’s federal court system to “at least some level of normality.”