Alina Habba, a former personal attorney for President Trump, is stepping down as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey following an appeals court ruling last week that found she was unlawfully serving in the role.
Habba said in a statement posted on social media on Monday that she was not quitting in the face of legal challenges but instead resigning "to protect the stability and integrity" of the U.S. attorney's office.
"This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me," she said, adding that she will remain at the DOJ as the senior advisor to the attorney general for U.S. attorneys.
Habba's decision comes as the Justice Department has lost a string of court cases ruling that U.S. attorneys have not been appointed legally, including in Nevada, California and Virginia.
Habba first gained national attention as one of Trump's personal attorneys who defended him in civil and criminal cases after his first term in office.
After Trump returned to the White House, he tapped Habba in March to serve as the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey on an interim basis. He also nominated her to serve in the position on a permanent basis, but she failed to garner enough support in the U.S. Senate to win confirmation.
With her 120-day interim tenure about to expire, the U.S. District Court for New Jersey opted not to keep her in the job and instead appointed a career prosecutor, Desiree Grace, to the post.
Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired Grace, and the administration undertook a series of complex legal maneuvers to put Habba back in charge of the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey.
That touched off legal challenges that culminated with the unanimous ruling last week from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The court found that Habba was unlawfully serving as U.S. attorney, and it disqualified her from supervising cases.
The prolonged legal fight over Habba's status had brought many legal proceedings in New Jersey federal courts to a standstill, causing havoc across the system.
In a statement, Bondi slammed the appeals court decision on Habba.
"The court's ruling has made it untenable for her to effectively run her office, with politicized judges pausing trials designed to bring violent criminals to justice," she said."These judges should not be able to countermand the President's choice of attorneys entrusted with carrying out the executive branch's core responsibility of prosecuting crime."
Bondi said the department "will seek further review" of the court's decision, and is confident it will be reversed.
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