Alina
Habba
announced
today
that
she
is
“stepping
down”
from
her
position
as
Acting
U.S.
Attorney
for
the
District
of
New
Jersey.
Which
is
a
creative
way
to
describe
leaving
a
job
that
the
federal
courts
have
ruled
she
doesn’t
actually
hold.
Habba,
the
parking
garage
lawyer
plucked
from
obscurity
by
Donald
Trump
to
help
him
rack
up
a
million
dollars
in
sanctions,
had
served
as
Interim
U.S.
Attorney
for
the
District
of
New
Jersey
until
the
statutory
120-day
limit
on
that
post
expired.
At
that
point,
without
a
duly
confirmed
U.S.
Attorney,
the
district
judges
fulfilled
their
legal
duty
and
appointed
one.
Meanwhile,
the
administration
gave
Habba
the
job
as
First
Assistant
and
pretended
that
she
took
over
as
Acting
U.S.
Attorney
at
that
point.
The
courts
disagreed
and
most
recently
the
Third
Circuit
affirmed
that
decision.
Habba
has
now
pretended
to
resign
the
job
she’s
been
pretending
to
have.
Hardly
the
most
consequential
takeaway,
but
the
decision
to
write,
“my
loyalty
is
not
to…
a
ZIP
code,”
followed
by
“you
can
take
the
girl
out
of
New
Jersey,
but
you
cannot
take
New
Jersey
out
of
the
girl,”
suggests
the
statement
went
through
exactly
as
many
drafts
as
you’d
expect.
The
Third
Circuit
affirmed
what
Judge
Matthew
Brann
ruled
back
in
August:
you
cannot
play
an
elaborate
game
of
musical
chairs
with
interim
appointments
and
“special
attorney”
designations
to
circumvent
the
Senate
confirmation
process.
The
whole
point
of
the
Federal
Vacancies
Reform
Act
is
to
prevent
exactly
this
kind
of
patronage
appointment
of
unqualified
loyalists.
Now,
with
an
appellate
court
confirming
what
we
all
already
knew,
the
Habba
experiment
is
finally
over.
OR
IS
IT?!?
Three
minutes
after
Habba’s
announcement,
we
have
Attorney
General
Pam
Bondi
purporting
to
accept
Habba’s
resignation
while
claiming
that
the
DOJ
is
appealing
the
Third
Circuit
opinion
and
bringing
Habba
back
if
they
win.
How
is
this
not
moot?
Obviously,
it
behooves
the
DOJ
to
keep
pushing
this
issue
since
this
is
the
same
problem
they’ve
got
in
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia
with
Lindsey
Halligan
—
one
of
the
few
lawyers
who
makes
Alina
Habba
look
like
Oliver
Wendell
Holmes
since
her
incompetent
handling
of
the
Comey
and
James
cases
really
could
not
have
been
scripted
any
better
—
and
in
the
Northern
District
of
New
York
with
John
Sarcone
III.
Perhaps
Bondi’s
suggesting
the
DOJ
will
take
their
chances
in
other
jurisdictions
and
try
to
use
any
victory
there
to
ramrod
Habba
back
in?
WHO
KNOWS?
Thankfully
for
Habba,
the
Pam
Bondi
School
for
Wayward
Lawyers
still
has
a
home
for
her.
Like
Ed
Martin,
the
proposed
U.S.
Attorney
for
D.C.
that
even
the
Republicans
refused
to
back,
who
fell
backward
into
a
made-up
“weaponization
working
group”
job
in
the
DOJ
to
harass
Trump’s
political
rivals,
Habba
will
get
a
new
DOJ
title
as
a
“Senior
Advisor”
to
“drive
the
fight
against
violent
crime
nationwide.”
Habba
leaves,
much
like
Kramer
left
Brandt
Leland:
Joe
Patrice is
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