The Trump administration is staking out new ground in the fight to retain loyal U.S. attorneys after a string of setbacks, piling on pressure as top federal prosecutors stand firm in their roles and push forward with probes of the president\u2019s political adversaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUNITED WE STAND,\u201d the office representing U.S. attorneys nationwide wrote Thursday on social platform X<\/u><\/a>, sharing an image of President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>and his prosecutors from an event last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Included in the picture: Four of five U.S. attorneys who judges found are unlawfully serving in their roles, including the prosecutor Trump tapped to pursue charges against two of his foremost foes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not included: Alina Habba, the fifth such U.S. attorney, who resigned from her role last month after a federal appeals court panel affirmed her disqualification<\/u><\/a> as New Jersey\u2019s top federal prosecutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week reinvigorated its bid to bring her back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In court filings Wednesday<\/u><\/a>, DOJ lawyers asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to reconsider the three-judge panel\u2019s ruling, which upheld a lower court determination that Habba\u2019s tenure turned unlawful when her 120-day interim term expired, despite the administration taking a \u201cnovel series of legal and personnel moves\u201d to keep her in the job regardless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The government called the panel\u2019s \u201catextual limits\u201d on acting U.S. attorneys a matter of \u201cexceptional importance.\u201d It also argued that, despite Habba\u2019s resignation, the appeal of her disqualification is not moot, because if higher courts rule in her favor, she intends to return to the role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Habba confirmed as much herself in a sworn declaration<\/u><\/a> attached to the filing, signaling the fight could be destined for the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The panel\u2019s ruling has had ripple effects<\/u><\/a> for Trump\u2019s U.S. attorneys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Habba stepped down, and three prosecutors split up her duties, Delaware\u2019s GOP chair-turned-top federal prosecutor announced her resignation,<\/u><\/a> as well, citing the appeals court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ruling was also cited several times<\/u><\/a> in a judge\u2019s decision last week to disqualify John Sarcone III, acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, from two probes into state Attorney General Letitia James\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D) office and quash related subpoenas<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the panel ruled, U.S. attorneys in Nevada, California and Virginia were also found to be unlawfully in their roles. However, those prosecutors have remained atop their offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, some have doubled down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lindsey Halligan, the Eastern District of Virginia\u2019s disputed top prosecutor, this week tore into a federal judge<\/u><\/a> who questioned whether she\u2019s entitled to continue calling herself the U.S. attorney after her installation was ruled unlawful, directing the prosecutor<\/u><\/a> to explain why her representations weren\u2019t \u201cfalse or misleading\u201d and shouldn\u2019t yield discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Court\u2019s thinly veiled threat to use attorney discipline to cudgel the Executive Branch into conforming its legal position in all criminal prosecutions to the views of a single district judge is a gross abuse of power and an affront to the separation of powers,\u201d wrote Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience prior to taking the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The judge had not yet responded as of Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The former White House aide\u2019s disqualification resulted in the dismissals of criminal cases against James, the New York attorney general, and former FBI Director James Comey \u2014 two Trump opponents whom the president had urged his Justice Department to prosecute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After twice failing to reindict James and with key evidence in Comey\u2019s case tied up in a separate legal fight, the Justice Department appealed<\/u><\/a> the dismissals and Halligan\u2019s disqualification last month. Their cases will be heard by an appeals court panel together, with the DOJ\u2019s opening brief due early next month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the event for U.S. attorneys, Trump reportedly chided his U.S. attorneys for failing to prosecute his opponents quickly enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Wall Street Journal reported\u2002that he called<\/u><\/a> the prosecutors weak and ineffective, suggesting they were making it difficult for Attorney General Pam Bondi\u2002<\/u><\/a>and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to do their jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reported exchange came just before federal prosecutors sent grand jury subpoenas<\/u><\/a> to the Federal Reserve and threatened a criminal indictment over Chair Jerome Powell\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>testimony to the Senate Banking Committee in June about the Fed\u2019s ongoing $2.5 billion renovation of its Washington, D.C., headquarters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeanine Pirro,<\/u><\/a> the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote on X<\/u><\/a> that her office contacted the Fed on \u201cmultiple occasions\u201d to discuss the renovations and Powell\u2019s testimony but was \u201cignored.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe word \u2018indictment\u2019 has come out of Mr. Powell\u2019s mouth, no one else\u2019s,\u201d Pirro said. \u201cNone of this would have happened if they had just responded to our outreach. This office makes decisions based on the merits, nothing more and nothing less.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pirro\u2019s office also seems to be probing Democratic lawmakers who participated in a video calling on service members to reject unlawful orders. A spokesperson declined to \u201cconfirm or deny the existence of an investigation,\u201d but five of the six lawmakers involved have said they\u2019re targets<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not clear what possible crime the Justice Department is investigating the lawmakers for potentially committing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Trump has alleged sedition<\/u><\/a>, the rarely charged and serious accusation of rebelling against the U.S. government; right-wing extremist group leaders have faced the charge after plotting to keep him in power on Jan. 6, 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the Journal, Trump raised specific issue with the sluggish pace of the DOJ\u2019s investigation into Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) over allegations of mortgage fraud. The senator has denied wrongdoing and portrayed the probe as politically motivated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The pressure from the top has trickled down, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Minnesota, six prosecutors \u2014 including the first assistant U.S. attorney \u2014 reportedly\u2002resigned<\/u><\/a> amid a push to investigate the widow of Renee Good, the 37-year-old woman shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Top DOJ officials also reportedly resigned<\/u><\/a> from the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division after the office\u2019s head, Harmeet Dhillon, declined to investigate the shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DOJ alumni network Justice Connection estimates more than 230 career\u2002employees<\/u><\/a> have been fired since Trump returned to the White House nearly a year ago and that more than 6,400 have left<\/u><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n