A federal judge disqualified the heads of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey on Monday, marking the second time in less than a year that a judge has ruled the top leaders of the Justice Department outpost were serving unlawfully.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann, who ruled last summer that President Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba was illegally appointed to acting U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey, ruled Monday that the Justice Department’s replacements to the role were also unconstitutionally appointed.
Habba left her role in the office in December after a federal appeals court backed Fire’s rumbling.
After Habba’s departure, Attorney General Pam Bondi replaced her by appointing Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio to divide the responsibilities of the U.S. attorney’s role between the three of them.
On Monday, Brann found that the department had unlawfully split the power of the office to a three-person leadership team.
He ruled that the leadership structure “exceeds” Bondi’s authority and was a violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, and warned that “any further attempts to unlawfully fill the office will result in dismissals of pending cases.”
The judge stayed the implementation of his order pending appeal, and did not immediately dismiss the criminal indictments against the men who brought the challenge.
“One year into this administration, it is plain that President Trump and his top aides have chafed at the limits on their power set forth by law and the Constitution. To avoid these roadblocks, this administration frequently purports to have discovered enormous grants of executive power hidden in the vagaries and silences of the code,” Brann wrote in his 130-page opinion.
He pushed back on the government’s arguments, which he described as a belief that “the Attorney General can appoint anyone to any subordinate position in the Department of Justice and delegate them the authority to act in any other subordinate role, no matter how significant.”
Brann wrote that instead of going through the “viable methods” of filling the vacancy left by Habba’s disqualification, including President Trump nominating a successor and going through the Senate confirmation process, “the Government tells us: the President doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.”
“It is crystal clear and not capable of factual dispute that the Government’s conduct in this case is intended to fill the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey unilaterally,” Brann wrote, adding that “through its statements and actions, the Administration has made clear that it cares far more about who is running the USAO-NJ than whether it is running at all.”
The judge cautioned that “scores of dangerous criminals could have their cases dismissed or convictions eventually reversed” if there is not a legally proper appointment of a U.S. attorney in that office. He warned the same issue could apply to Justice Department offices around the country that are currently facing vacancies, as judges could invalidate criminal charges brought under illegally appointed prosecutors.
New Jersey is one of at least five states where federal judges have ruled that a Trump administration-appointed temporary U.S. attorney is serving in their role unlawfully, with similar orders issued in New York, Virginia, California and Nevada. Many of the rulings focus on the administration’s efforts to keep interim U.S. attorneys on the job after a 120-day limit set by federal law.
Habba, now a senior advisor at the Justice Department, wrote on X that Brann’s ruling is “ridiculous.”
“The unconstitutionality of this complete overreach into the Executive Branch, time and time again, will not succeed. They would rather have no U.S. Attorney than safety for the people of NJ,” Habba wrote.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.