An Obama-appointed federal judge ruled that a three-person leadership team of the New Jersey federal prosecutor’s office was unlawful and said President Donald Trump’s insistence on handpicking U.S. attorneys showed that the White House cared more about personal control than public safety.
Matthew W. Brann, the judge, was making a decision regarding the legality of the three prosecutors who have been in charge of the New Jersey office since December. The New York Times reported that he also discussed the widespread practice of the Justice Department dismissing judicially appointed prosecutors immediately upon their appointment.
The judge outrageously claimed that the Trump administration cared more about who ran the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey than whether it was running at all, using italics to highlight the elevated tone of his decision.
Judge Brann stated that “scores of dangerous criminals could have their cases dismissed or convictions eventually reversed” as a result of the president’s ongoing reliance on illegal procedures to appoint top federal prosecutors.
He expressed his frustration by saying that judges would have to dismiss pending cases if there were any more attempts “to unlawfully” control the office’s leadership. To give the government time to file an appeal, Judge Brann said he would postpone his own ruling.
Usually nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, U.S. attorneys oversee prosecutors’ offices in more than 90 districts. However, senators in their states have blocked several of Trump’s preferred nominees, such as Alina Habba, his choice to head the New Jersey office. Consequently, the law has compelled judges to select their own candidates to fill vacancies.
The Justice Department has dismissed judges who appointed U.S. attorneys during Mr. Trump’s second term. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, posted on social media following the appointment of an interim U.S. attorney in upstate New York: “Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does.” Refer to our Constitution’s Article II.
Judge Brann, a federal judge who typically sits in Pennsylvania but was designated to handle the matter in New Jersey, referred to that statement and others like it as “combative (and legally incomplete).” He said that such assertions clearly indicated that “the Department of Justice would not permit anyone to hold any United States attorney’s office if that person was not handpicked by the president.”
Habba, a former personal lawyer to Trump who now works at the Justice Department in Washington, responded on social media to Judge Brann on Monday, calling his ruling “ridiculous.”
“Judges may continue to try and stop President Trump from carrying out what the American people voted for, but we will not be deterred,” she wrote. “The unconstitutionality of this complete overreach into the Executive Branch, time and time again, will not succeed.”
Judge Brann came to the conclusion in August that Habba had broken the law by continuing to hold office. Three prosecutors, Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox, and Ari Fontecchio, took Habba’s place after he left the office in December after an appeals court ruled in his favor.
They have been sharing the duties of the U.S. attorney ever since.
However, Judge Brann declared the arrangement to be unworkable from a legal standpoint.
On Monday, he wrote that the Trump administration had again overstepped its authority, as it claimed to have discovered “enormous grants of executive power hidden in the vagaries and silences of the code.”
“Why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this district potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?” he asked. “The government tells us: The president doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.”
After two defendants accused of crimes in the District of New Jersey contested Habba’s jurisdiction and attempted to have the charges against them dropped, Judge Brann was given the case over the summer.
More challenges were filed following Habba’s resignation and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appointment of the three prosecutors to jointly head the Newark office, which resulted in Monday’s ruling.