A lawyer at the center of controversy over the past week is leaving her job and heading to the US Department of Justice to become an aide to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
President Donald Trump's former defense lawyer Alina Habba, promoted by the President to become one of New Jersey's top prosecutors, said on Monday she's stepping down.
And the attorney general said on Monday that three Department of Justice officials will be taking on oversight of the New Jersey court district which was previously supervised by Ms. Habba's office.
Habba gained notoriety last week after an appeals court ruled that even though she had previously overseen aspects of that New Jersey district until her term expired, she was improperly reappointed to the job by President Trump, to whom she's intensely loyal.
The court ruled that federal judge vacancies are filled strictly by a confirmation in the Senate and not by the president, so Habba was considered an illegitimate re-appointment.
With her NJ duties distributed to new supervisors, Attorney General Bondi said Habba will soon be joining her office as one of Bondi's top advisors.
Habba was working as a temporary appointment to the role of "special assistant to the AG" following the court ruling last week that disqualified her as an official prosecutor.
"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 her statement.
"But do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me."
This case is one of several in which President Trump has had trouble keeping the loyalists he's been naming as prosecutors in Blue States because of a Senate tradition of deferring to home-state Senators during the confirmation process for US attorneys and judges.
Left-leaning Senators confirm left-leaning judges, an Mr. Trump has tried to get around that by appointing his own people when possible.
Last month, a judge dismissed two criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after determining that White House aide Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance lawyer without prosecutorial experience, was unlawfully appointed to lead the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia.
