By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Alina Habba, said on Thursday that she would seek to remain as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey despite a judicial decision this week not to extend her appointment.
Habba’s statement marked the latest challenge by the Trump administration to oversight by federal courts.
Habba wrote on X that she was now the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey. The Justice Department used a series of procedural maneuvers to attempt to circumvent the Tuesday decision by the U.S. District Court in New Jersey and keep her in the post, a department spokesperson told Reuters.
“I don’t cower to pressure,” Habba wrote on X. “I don’t answer to politics.”
Judges on the U.S. District Court in New Jersey declined to extend Habba’s tenure as interim U.S. attorney, instead naming the second-highest ranking official in the office, Desiree Grace, as her replacement.
But hours later Attorney General Pam Bondi said Grace had been removed from the post, accusing the judges of having political motivations and seeking to thwart Trump’s authority.
U.S. law allows federal district courts to intervene if an interim U.S. attorney’s 120-day term expires and courts have regularly invoked that authority.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone)
