Judge rules yet another Trump-appointed federal prosecutor was unlawfully installed

A federal judge in Nevada has ruled that President Donald Trump's pick for U.S. attorney in that state is not serving in that position legally, disqualifying her from overseeing four felony indictments of defendants who sued over their cases.

Sigal Chattah, an Israeli-born lawyer who defended churches' right to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic and ran for Nevada attorney general before being derailed by leaked comments in which she said the incumbent Democrat, a Black man, should be hanged, was appointed to serve as Trump's interim U.S. attorney, but faced a dead end to permanent confirmation as both of the state's Democratic senators refused to return their "blue slips" consenting to her nomination.

Interim U.S. attorneys can only serve for 120 days, unless federal judges in that district agree to extend their appointment.

To get around this, Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted a maneuver where she had Chattah resign, then be appointed as the first assistant in that same U.S. Attorney's office — the position that, under the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act, takes over as acting U.S. attorney. Essentially, Chattah was appointed to fill her own vacancy.

This is not a valid use of the Vacancies Reform Act, Senior U.S. District Judge David Campbell ruled.

"In response to the Executive Branch’s repeated disregard of previous vacancy statutes, Congress took matters into its own hands, providing an automatic procedure for first assistants to become acting officers and giving only limited alternatives to the President," wrote Campbell. "The Court cannot accept the government’s assertion that the Attorney General has power to designate anyone she chooses as first assistant and have that person become the acting U.S. Attorney under § 3345(a)(1). The FVRA was enacted to put an end to precisely such Executive actions."

Campbell stopped short, however, of dismissing the indictments entirely, simply saying that Chattah could not oversee them.

This comes after the Justice Department tried to use the exact same maneuver to keep Trump's interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, past the 120-day mark after that state's senators and district judges similarly rejected her. In that case, too, a federal court found Habba was not serving legally.