Alina Habba resigns as acting US attorney for New Jersey after appeals court ruling

Alina Habba, a longtime personal lawyer to Donald Trump turned acting US attorney for New Jersey, has stepped down after a federal appeals court ruled she was unlawfully serving in the role. Her resignation, announced Monday on social media, followed a Third Circuit decision finding her continued tenure violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

“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,” Habba wrote. “But do not mistake my compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me.”

The move marks another legal setback for the Trump administration, which has repeatedly clashed with the judiciary as it attempts to expand executive authority. Yet Attorney General Pam Bondi signalled the fight isn’t over, saying the Justice Department will seek further review and expressing confidence the ruling will be reversed. If so, Bondi said, Habba intends to return.

Habba’s appointment has been controversial from the start. She has no prosecutorial background and was elevated early in Trump’s second term as part of a broader pattern of placing loyalists in senior Justice Department posts without Senate confirmation. As acting US attorney, she oversaw roughly 170 prosecutors in New Jersey.

Before becoming a federal prosecutor, Habba represented Trump in civil cases ranging from Letitia James’s fraud suit to writer E Jean Carroll’s defamation case, both of which he lost and is appealing. She is one of several former Trump personal attorneys drafted into top posts, including Emil Bove, now a Third Circuit judge, and Lindsey Halligan, appointed acting US attorney in Virginia until a court ruled her appointment illegal last month and threw out charges she filed against James and former FBI director James Comey.

With Habba out, the DOJ faces yet another vacancy in a role typically filled through Senate confirmation.