ISTANBUL
Fresh from its battle to keep Alina Habba in place as New Jersey’s chief federal prosecutor, the Justice Department is broadening its use of legally untested tactics to retain more of President Donald Trump’s temporary US attorney appointments nationwide, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
By switching titles for the federal lawyers and exploiting loopholes, Trump has been able to bypass congressional approval of top prosecutors – a cornerstone of the US doctrine of the separation of powers, enshrined in the Constitution as the founding fathers feared too much power in the hands of one individual, like the kings the US colonists fought a war to be free of.
A key element of the strategy to retain Habba – a former personal attorney for Trump – involved taking advantage of a technical difference between two statutes governing temporary US attorney appointments.
That same legal workaround has now been applied to extend the tenure of other similarly controversial Trump appointees this week in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, as well as earlier this month in Albany, the capital of the state of New York.
The approach, which the Trump administration has defended as a legitimate extension of the president’s constitutional powers, appears to be part of a larger effort as the clock runs down on dozens of interim appointments set to expire soon after reaching their 120-day term limits.
Critics have condemned the tactic as a blatant attempt to sidestep the Senate confirmation process and undermine the judiciary’s traditional role in help vet prosecutors as part of the separation of powers.
Normally the executive branch (Trump) nominates judges and prosecutors, and the legislative branch (the Senate) votes to accept or reject them, as stated in the Constitution, which all US presidents swear to uphold and defend. But Trump’s maneuvering has cut the Senate out of the process, or at least delayed it for hundreds of days, perhaps more than a year.
Controversial appointments
In California’s Central District, Trump loyalist Bill Essayli – appointed interim US attorney in April – was reclassified this week as the “acting” head of the office.
This change in designation could permit him to stay in the role for up to 210 more days.
A similar shift was made for Sigal Chattah, a Republican National Committeewoman and Trump’s pick for the District of Nevada, just as her four-month interim term neared its end.
Chattah did not respond to media inquiries Thursday, and a spokesperson for Essayli said he had no further comment on the title adjustment.
Still, like Habba, both Essayli and Chattah have faced strong criticism from Democrats during their time in office.
Essayli, a former Republican member of the state assembly, has become a combative figurehead for the administration’s aggressive stance on protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Chattah’s office has overseen several controversial prosecutions of demonstrators—some of which have since been dropped.
Just this week, Essayli filed to dismiss a fraud case involving Andrew Wiederhorn, a Trump donor and chairman of the company that owns the Fatburger chain, without giving a reason.
The White House had previously removed the line prosecutor handling that case after pressure from Trump ally and far-right influencer Laura Loomer.
Chattah, a staunch conservative who unsuccessfully ran for Nevada attorney general in 2022, has come under fire for inflammatory remarks during that campaign, including a comment that her opponent, Aaron Ford – who is Black – “should be hanging from a f---ing crane,” evoking the US’ painful history of racist intimidation and lynchings.
A coalition of over 100 retired judges issued a public letter this week declaring Chattah unfit for office, citing her record of partisan attacks and offensive social media posts.
Among them are posts comparing Jewish Democratic lawmakers to Nazi collaborators, and another that referred to Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis, who charged Trump in Georgia’s 2020 election case, as “so ghetto,” again using racially charged language.
Nevertheless, Chattah declared on Tuesday that she had weathered the storm of opposition.
“Donald Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General,” she wrote on X, echoing a similar declaration by Habba.
“I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of Nevada … The law is the ONLY thing that makes ALL people equal.”
At the heart of the Justice Department’s strategy is a nuanced legal distinction between the titles “interim” and “acting” US attorney, based on the different laws that authorize each designation, and switching attorneys unconfirmed by the Senate from seat to seat, so they can avoid confirmation hearings as long as possible.
