Habba is unqualified to be state's U.S. attorney
By: Mike Kelly
Columnist
USA Today Network
..... This is how politics breaks us in America now.
.....
A powerful appoints a friend to a top government position. But this friend is wholly unqualified. So America's system of governmental checks and balances - one of the great innovation of our Constitution - kicks in, and this unqualified friend is forced to leave. But the powerful leader is angry and punches back. And so, charges fly back and forth, with both sides digging in. Left in addressed is why this friend with minimal qualifications was named to a top job in the first place.
..... Such are the basics of the national political fight now being waged over the future of Alina Habba, a New Jersey lawyer who happened to befriend Donald Trump a few years ago after joining his golf club in Bedminster.
..... In March, [2025] Trump tapped Habba, 41, to be the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey. But federal judges in New Jersey took the unusual step of voting to dismiss Habba from the job - a move that amped up the back-and-forth political wars between Republicans and Democrats.
..... Habba's job was listed as interim U.S. attorney - meaning she was awaiting formal confirmation by the U.S. Senate. And without that confirmation, federal judges had the right to step in and dismiss her if they felt she was not capable of doing the job when her 120-day stint as the interim prosecutor expired. After all, being named as new Jersey's top fella prosecutor was no small promotion.
.....
On Thursday, [07/24/2025] the White House - and Habba - dug in their bureaucratic heels to keep her on the job. Trump withdrew her nomination as "interim" U.S. attorney, a technical move that allowed Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint Hobba as New Jersey's "first assistant U.S. attorney." But because New Jersey does not have a U.S. attorney the job automatically goes to the first assistant. So Habba is 'acting U.S. attorney" - for now, anyway. The move keeps her in the job for another 120 days.
..... None of this seemed to bother Habba. In a terse statement Thursday [07/24/2025] on the social media platform X, she declared: "I don't cower to pressure. I don't answer to politics. This is a fight for justice. And I'm all in. If nothing else, however, the furry of moves on Thursday [07/24/2025] - not to mention Habba's statement - underscores the controversy at the heart of her nomination.
..... The U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark is the fifth-largest in America. It is known for handling some of the nation's most complicated federal criminal cases in terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking and political corruption. Samuel Alito, now an associated justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once ran the office. So did former Governor Chris Christie and former Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff.
..... To say that Habba is grossly inexperienced - perhaps even wholly unqualified - to lead federal prosecutions in New Jersey is an understatement. She has never served as a prosecutor in any kind of case. No dog bites or speeding tickets in a small Municipal Court. No low-rent burglaries in county courtrooms. Definitely no murder nor rapes.
..... Her law firm, in an office building in Bedminster only a few miles form Trump's golf course, consisted of her and three other attorneys, according to the office website.
.....
Habba's firm is not know for handing any major cases. Instead, her pre-Trump legal reputation - such as it is - was framed by a series of disparate lawsuits. These include representing one of the "Real Housewives of New Jersey: - Siggy Flicker - who claimed her Facebook account had been disabled after she made a post wishing first lady Melania Trump a happy birthday.
..... In other lawsuits, Habba represented a man claiming that a New Jersey nursing home had provided substandard care during the coronavirus epidemic and a student at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut whose request for a tuition refund was denied when classes went Online. In other legal matters, she was the general counsel for a parking garage company that her husband ran.
.....
This wasn't exactly the kid of resume that cries out: "Hey, lets make Alina Habba the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey." But as a lawyer, Habba had one big advantage when Trump picked her out of America's prosecutors universe to run the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark. After joining Trump's golf club in Bedminster and meeting Trump, the president named her one of his attorneys.
..... Habba started big. Shew was part of the legal team that represented Trump when he was charged with falsely representing his assets. In another case, Habba and the president were fined nearly $1 million for filing what a judge in Florida described as a bogus lawsuit against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2024, despite her having almost no experience in the regimented world of federal court, Trump tapped Habba to represent him in the federal defamation lawsuit involving the former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who said Trump had sexually assaulted her.
.....
To say that Habba stumbled through all of these cases - notably the Carroll case - is a kind way of describing her behavior. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided at the Carroll trail, need up chiding Habba for messing up standard courtroom procedure, misstating the law, asking about off-limits topics and objecting to hold Habba in contempt and toss her in jail.
Playing politics from the start
..... Trump, of course, saw things differently. (Gee what a surprise.)
..... In naming Habba as New Jersey's top prosecutor earlier this year [2025] Trump said she "counseled me very well." The president then went on to say Habba would work "tirelessly to weed out crime and corruption and restore law and order to the Garden State."
..... That turned out to be quite a mandate.
..... Habba launched investigations into New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and the state's attorney general, Matthew Platkin - both Democrats. in one interview, she said she also wanted to "Turn New Jersey red."
..... Maybe someone forgot to tell Habba that federal prosecutors are not supposed to play politics. Maybe she also forgot that she was just interim U.S. attorney - meaning that she needed to perform well enough to merit confirmation by the Senate.
..... But it seems that Habba could not avoid politics.
.....
Certainly, politics seemed p[art of the toxic legal brew that spilled from a protest demonstration in early May [2025] outside federal immigration jail in Newark. The city's mayor , Ras Baraka, then a candidate in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, showed up outside the jail with several Democratic House members to raise questions about accommodations there for undocumented immigrants.
.....
Federal agents need up charing Baraka with trespassing. ten days later, Habba's office charged one of the Democratic House members - U.S. Representative LaMonia McIver - with assaulting, impeding and interfering with federal agents when she tired to protect Baraka from being arrested.
..... But Habba, perhaps sensing how senseless and legally this the case was, dropped the charges against Baraka, McIver's fate remains unknown. But if Habba's office through the case against Baraka was weak, what does that mean for McIver's charges, which are obviously linked to the now-dismissed case against Baraka?
..... Such a question underscores the kind of inexperience and lack of lawyerly skill
that has trailed Habba in recent years. Arresting a mayor and a congresswoman - indeed nay elected official - is no small event. you would think a competent prosecutor would want to have all the legal ducks lined up ahead of time.
.....
That's pretty much want a federal magistrate judge said when he presided at the formal dismissal of Baraka's trespassing charge.
..... In a video-conference on May 21 [2025] with Baraka's attorney and two federal assistant prosecutors - but not Habba - U.S. Magistrate Judge Andre M. Espinosa pointed to a central problem in the case. You didn't need a law degree to know that this problem, cited by Espinosa, was at the heart of questions about Habba's qualifications to be the state's top federal prosecutor.
..... Espinosa pointed to an "apparent rush in this case, culminating today in the embarrassing retraction charges." The judge went on to say the botched case "suggests a failure to adequately investigate, it carefully gather facts and to thoughtfully consider the implications of your actions before wielding your immense power."
..... And then Espinosa said what Trump should have realized months ago when he appointed Habba to a job she was not ready for: "Your office must operate with a higher standard than that."
..... But that was not the case with Alina Habba. And that's why politics has broken us - again.