In a stunning political and legal turnaround, Alina Habba announced Thursday that she is now officially the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, just days after a panel of Obama- and Biden-appointed federal judges voted to oust her from her interim role. The move comes after a coordinated pressure campaign by Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who lobbied to remove Habba over her bold decision to indict Democrat Rep. LaMonica McIver.
But instead of going quietly, Habba — with help from Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Trump — played the rules like a grandmaster, flipping the entire situation on its head.
Habba’s interim term was set to expire Friday at 11:59 p.m., but before the clock could run out, she resigned from her interim post and Trump withdrew her nomination for a permanent appointment. Why? Because the Federal Vacancies Reform Act bars a nominee for a Senate-confirmed role from serving in an acting capacity.
Then came the key move: Bondi appointed Habba as First Assistant U.S. Attorney, placing her next in line to assume the role in the event of a vacancy. With the judges’ handpicked replacement, Desiree Leigh Grace, immediately fired by Bondi on Tuesday, that vacancy was created — and Habba automatically stepped back into the top job as Acting U.S. Attorney.
Checkmate.
This strategic maneuver not only outmaneuvered the activist judges but also delivered a political victory for the America First movement, which sees Habba as a rising legal warrior unafraid to take on entrenched Democratic power structures.
Mike Davis, head of the Article III Project, has filed a judicial complaint against the federal judges who voted to oust Habba, saying they “violated Canons 2, 3, and 5 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges” by succumbing to political pressure from Jeffries.
“These New Jersey activist judges—15 of whom were appointed by Obama and Biden—saluted,” Davis said. “It’s an outrageous abuse of judicial power.”
For now, Alina Habba is back where she belongs — at the helm of one of the most politically charged U.S. Attorney’s offices in the country. And this latest battle proves she’s not backing down — not to Jeffries, not to the judges, and definitely not to the swamp.
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