Alina Habba looks on during her swearing-in ceremony as US attorney general for New Jersey in the Oval Office on March 28, 2025.Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty
Alina Habba has finally stepped down as New Jersey’s lead federal prosecutor after a three-month court challenge found her appointment without Senate confirmation illegal.
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit concurred with a lower court ruling that Habba, formerly Trump’s personal attorney, was gifted the position of acting US attorney through a “novel”—and unlawful—“series of legal and personnel moves.”
Habba announced her resignation as acting US attorney for the District of New Jersey in a social media post Monday afternoon to “protect the stability and integrity of the office.” Habba, who helped defend Trump in his New York civil fraud case and defamation trials, has no experience as a prosecutor.
“But do not mistake compliance for surrender,” Habba wrote, announcing that she would continue to serve the Department of Justice as Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “Senior Advisor” for US attorneys.
It remains uncertain who will head the New Jersey US attorney’s office following Habba’s resignation.
Despite the earlier federal ruling on her position, Habba remained in her post after Bondi deemed her “Special Attorney to the Attorney General,” a title the White House has used in other attempts to force through other prosecutorial appointments without Senate confirmation.
Bondi wrote on X that the Department of Justice would “seek further review” of the decision against Habba and that she was “confident” it would be reversed. Bondi complained that “politicized judges” were pausing trials to “countermand the President’s choice of attorneys.”
Habba was only the first of Trump’s US attorneys to be embroiled in a court battle over their appointment. Judges have stated that circumventing Senate confirmation by placing acting US attorneys—and obvious Trump devotees—in lead prosecutor positions was illegal.
Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, met the same fate last month. Halligan’s criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were subsequently dismissed. In September and October, respectively, the US attorneys in Nevada and the Central District of California were also found to have been appointed illegally.
In a Monday statement posted on X about Halligan, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the judges of conducting an “unconscionable campaign of bias and hostility.”
Habba’s resignation may indicate that the Trump administration is nevertheless beginning to see such appointments as a losing battle.
