Three prosecutors installed by Donald Trump’s administration to lead the New Jersey attorney general’s office after the president’s former personal lawyer was disqualified from the role in December were also illegally appointed, a federal judge has ruled.
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, handpicked the three to replace Alina Habba, who resigned after a succession of district and appeals court rulings that she was serving illegally because she never received Senate confirmation.
On Monday, federal judge Matthew Brann said Bondi’s actions repeated the same error of bypassing congressional approval for the appointments. He stopped short of ordering their removal pending a government appeal – but, in a blistering 130-page ruling, said overreach by the executive branch could jeopardise all of its cases before him.
“On the [government’s] reading, the president would have had no need ever to seek the Senate’s advice and consent for his [US attorney] appointments,” Brann, chief judge of the district court for the middle district of Pennsylvania, wrote.
“Whenever there was a fair prospect of the Senate’s rejecting his preferred nominee, the president could have appointed that individual unilaterally … to serve ‘ad infinitum’. It is unthinkable that such an obvious means for the executive to expand its power would have been overlooked by Congress.”
Brann, a former Republican party official appointed to the federal court bench in 2012 during Barack Obama’s presidency, made the original ruling in August that disqualified Habba and accused the Trump administration of keeping her in place using “a novel series of legal and personnel moves”.
He accused Bondi of similar maneuvering following Habba’s resignation by splitting the New Jersey attorney general’s position into three and appointing administration-friendly lawyers Jordan Fox, Ari Fontecchio, and Philip Lamparello, to share the responsibilities of the role.
By “diluting” the job in such a way, Bondi argued that the government was not required to seek the approval of Congress because no one person was in charge of all aspects of it.
Brann, however, found that Bondi had no legal authority to split the role or appoint delegates of her choosing to try to evade laws requiring their Senate confirmation or appointment by other legally valid means.
The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Habba, now serving as a senior adviser to Bondi, attacked Brann in a post on social media, accusing him of “another ridiculous ruling”.
She wrote: “Judges may continue to try [to] stop President Trump from carrying out what the American people voted for, but we will not be deterred. The unconstitutionality of this complete overreach into the executive branch, time and time again, will not succeed. They would rather have no US Attorney than safety for the people of [New Jersey].
“Judges do not fire DOJ officials, AG Pam Bondi and [the president] do – get in line.”
The case was brought by several criminal defendants in New Jersey seeking the dismissal of their cases on the grounds the three acting attorneys general were serving illegally. Brann did not immediately rule on the fate of those cases, or order the trio’s removal – but warned that the government’s efforts to continue with unconfirmed leadership will “result in dismissals of pending cases”.
He also suggested Bondi had jeopardized the course of justice by her machinations.
“Why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this district potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?” he wrote.
“The government tells us: ‘the president doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants’.”
Brann’s ruling is the second time in a week that federal courts have ruled Trump appointments illegal for failing to secure Senate approval. An appeals court judge in Arizona said Saturday that Kari Lake, a Republican former candidate for governor, unlawfully led the US Agency for Global Media for several months in 2025.
Senior judge Royce C Lamberth of the US district court for the district of Columbia voided mass layoffs and other actions Lake took during that period to dismantle the agency that oversees the Voice of America (VOA), which is the country’s largest and oldest international broadcaster – and provides grants to Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other news agencies.
