SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The Trump administration is trying to keep President Trump's former personal lawyer in place as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor. Today was supposed to be Alina Habba's last day as interim U.S. attorney. It's a temporary job, and it comes with a time limit. So district court judges in New Jersey stepped in to appoint a successor, but Habba has indicated on social media that she's not going anywhere. Kyle Cheney is Politico's senior legal affairs reporter, and he's reported that, in his words, this appears to circumvent the traditional role of the Senate in approving key administration officials. Kyle, good morning.
KYLE CHENEY: Good morning. Good to be with you, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: Could - this sounds complicated, but could you describe how the Trump administration is attempting to keep Alina Habba in her job as New Jersey's U.S. attorney?
CHENEY: Sure. As you noted, the interim job comes with a 120-day time limit that ends Friday, but what they've done is essentially had her resign from that position. And actually, while President Trump had nominated her to be confirmed by the Senate, pulled her nomination. And instead, what Attorney General Pam Bondi is going to do is put her back in that office as basically the top deputy position. And because the actual U.S. attorney position is now vacant, she would be, by being the top deputy, be automatically elevated to the acting U.S. attorney. It's a very, you know, circuitous, kind of convoluted way to get her back into the role, but without that 120-day time limit hanging over her tenure.
PFEIFFER: Very convoluted. And meanwhile, district court judges in New Jersey have picked another Republican to succeed Habba. So both women now claim to have the job. How does that get resolved?
CHENEY: Yeah, so the courts have always had this, you know, power - almost always had this power to appoint someone to fill a vacancy if it exists. But it's never really been in conflict with the sitting administration. So this could take court challenges. This could take a long time. And in the meantime, could cast a cloud of - a legitimacy cloud over the actions of that office and - 'cause we don't know - really know who's leading it.
PFEIFFER: Is this legal what the Trump administration is doing?
CHENEY: So the shuffling of personnel is - pretty much yes, it's legal. But whether it overrides the judges exercising their own lawful power to put in their choice, that's where the conflict will be. And we just don't know because it's never been resolved in this way before. But moving - shuffling personnel around has happened, and even to sort of pull off these strange appointment mechanisms, I think it's happened before.
PFEIFFER: And this question may have an obvious answer, but what are the advantages to President Trump keeping his former personal lawyer in a role as New Jersey's U.S. attorney?
CHENEY: Well, Alina Habba has been one of the, you know, few loyalists who's been, you know, in Trump's circle for years and with him through the worst of his crises with the criminal courts and then defended him in civil cases. I think it's just someone who he knows is going to do what's in his interests, while the people - the person that the judges picked is a career prosecutor who is familiar with that district, familiar with that office, and what it does, but is not necessarily a Trump loyalist the way Alina Habba is.
PFEIFFER: There are - there's a case in Upstate New York where the details are a little different, but largely the same thing happened. How common have moves been - like this been historically?
CHENEY: So judges have stepped in to appoint interim U.S. attorneys in the past, but usually it's in conjunction with the administration. They cooperate. They pick someone they can mutually agree on, and there's no fight. It's still rare, but it has happened throughout history, just never with the brawl that we're about to see in New Jersey.
PFEIFFER: That is Politico's senior legal affairs reporter, Kyle Cheney. Kyle, thank you.
CHENEY: Thanks for having me.
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