Alina Habba Wants Her Old Job Back

Alina Habba, who stepped down as New Jersey’s top prosecutor, wants her old job back.

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday asked the full Third Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a three-judge panel’s December ruling that Habba was serving unlawfully after staying in the job too long without Senate confirmation.

The ruling prompted Habba to step down.

In a declaration accompanying the request for a rehearing, Habba said she resigned because she didn’t want legal controversy over her authority to "interfere with the office’s critical and important work.” Challenges to her authority were brought by defense attorneys and had already disrupted criminal and civil proceedings in New Jersey federal courts.

If the Third Circuit or the Supreme Court sides with her, “I intend to return to my prior position,” Habba wrote.

Habba, who is still working at the Department of Justice as senior adviser to Bondi, is one of several federal prosecutors whom President Donald Trump and Bondi have tried to keep in office without Senate approval. So far, courts have sided against attempts to circumvent the Senate confirmation process and disqualified prosecutors in Nevada, the Los Angeles area, Virginia and elsewhere.

The latest of those rulings came last week when a federal judge disqualified the top prosecutor in upstate New York and tossed subpoenas his office issued to state Attorney General Letitia James, a Trump foe.

DOJ has said it would press the appointment powers issue on Trump’s behalf. If Habba didn’t say she wanted her job back, the case — which is the furthest along — could be moot, delaying a showdown over the president’s powers.

Still, Habba’s decision to vacate the position in early December was an unexpected twist because she could have kept her job while appealing.

In the request for a rehearing, Bondi argued the three-judge panel’s ruling created “new uncertainty” in how certain vacancies can be filled.

One of the judges on the Third Circuit who was not on the three-judge panel is Emil Bove who, like Habba, was a personal attorney to Trump. He then became a top Justice Department official while Habba ran the New Jersey U.S. attorney's office. Since taking the bench in September, Bove has taken a handful of actions that many legal experts say are unorthodox — if not unethical — for a sitting judge.