A federal appeals court has ruled that Alina Habba, a former personal lawyer to President Trump, was unlawfully appointed as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey and has disqualified her from supervising active cases. This unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a major setback for the administration, which has been trying hard to install its preferred loyalists into key U.S. Attorney offices across the country.
This whole situation is pretty wild, especially because it upheld a previous ruling made by U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann back in August. Judge Brann had already found that the Trump administration violated federal appointments law when they originally named Habba as the acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, per Reuters.
