Talk about a double-whammy: after a judge ruled Alina Habba was appointed illegally as New Jersey‘s top prosecutor, a different judge declared Bondi’s replacement attorneys were also improperly appointed. Writing in The Guardian, Jeffrey Luscombe noted that, in both cases, violations of Federal Vacancies Reform Act triggered the rulings.
Three prosecutors installed to lead the New Jersey attorney general’s office after Trump’s former personal lawyer was disqualified from the role in December were also illegally appointed, a federal judge has ruled.
Pam Bondi 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.
Jeffrey Luscombe, The Guardian
Obama appointee Judge Brann’s ruling was broader than the disqualification of Habba; he accused Bondi of “diluting” responsibility for New Jersey’s U.S. attorney role between three people in order to avoid Senate approval.
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.
Jeffrey Luscombe, The Guardian
Pam Bondi is no stranger to extra-legal conduct. Her department took retaliatory action last July when they fired Habba’s replacement, as stipulated by code. She tried to indict James Comey in Virginia at behest of Trump—also an act of retaliation— which in lay terms ended up being an exploding cigar. And of course there was the now-infamous 2013 bribe to Bondi that, by all accounts, allowed Donald’s now-defunct Trump Foundation to escape consequences in his home state of Florida.
In all, at least five of Bondi’s appointments have been ruled illegal by federal judges across the country.
