Alina Habba attends her swearing-in ceremony as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 28, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Alina Habba, who had previously served as President Donald Trump’s defense lawyer, said Monday that she was stepping down as U.S. attorney for New Jersey after judges disqualified her from that position.
Habba’s resignation came a week after the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a district court judge’s ruling that found her ineligible for the top prosecutor’s job because of the circumstances of her appointment as the interim holder of that post.
Habba and Attorney General Pam Bondi said Habba would remain at the Department of Justice as senior advisor to the attorney general for U.S. attorneys.
Bondi also said the DOJ would appeal the 3rd Circuit’s ruling and that the department is confident it would be reversed.
“As a result of the Third Circuit’s ruling, and to protect the stability and integrity of the office which I love, I have decided to step down in my role as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba said in a statement on X.
“But do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me,” Habba said.
“Make no mistake, you can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you cannot take the New Jersey out of the girl.”
Bondi said on X, “I am saddened to accept Alina’s resignation.”
“The court’s ruling has made it untenable for her to effectively run her office, with politicized judges pausing trials designed to bring violent criminals to justice,” Bondi said.
“These judges should not be able to countermand the President’s choice of attorneys entrusted with carrying out the executive branch’s core responsibility of prosecuting crime.”
Trump called the reasons for Habba’s resignation “a shame.”
“She’s not disqualified,” Trump said.
“You got a blue slip thing that’s horrible,” Trump said, referring to the practice of the Senate Judiciary Committee to allow effective vetoes of nominations of U.S. attorneys unless the senators from the state housing that office agree on the person nominated.
“It’s a shame … Republicans should be ashamed of themselves” for allowing it to go on, Trump said.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche appointed three people to supervise the criminal, civil and appellate, and administrative functions of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office in light of Habba’s departure.
Lindsey Halligan, another former lawyer for Trump, was recently disqualified by a judge from serving as the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia because of the circumstances of her appointment.
Because of Halligan’s disqualification, the grand jury indictments she obtained against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were dismissed last month.
Bondi appointed Habba as interim U.S. attorney in March after her predecessor resigned.
Trump later nominated her to hold the post permanently, but her nomination was never considered by the Senate, as is required.
The DOJ engaged in a byzantine series of maneuvers that it argued enabled Habba to automatically become the acting U.S. attorney, but a federal judge and then the 3rd Circuit rejected that effort, saying they failed to comply with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
— Additional reporting by Justin Papp and Garrett Downs